encouraging inclusion of both girls and boys by overcoming our cultural and religious beliefs

1. Gender awareness:
Kenya's perspective
Mr. Jamlick Bosire
Early Childhood
Development & Education
specialist.
New Horizon Consultancy
Services.
ojamlick@yahoo.com

2. Supporting both
girls and boys in
their learning.

3. Objectives
1. To identify gender disparities in
primary schools.
2. To analyze the causes of gender
disparities.
3. To suggest possible solutions to gender
disparities in your primary schools.

4. Gender concepts:
1.Sex
2.Gender
3.Gender roles
4.Gender disparities
5.Gender issues
6.Gender stereotype

5. Sex:
Refers to natural biological characteristics of
men and women.
Gender:
Refers to being female, or male.
Gender roles:
These are responsibilities and activities men and
women are expected to undertake in the home,
work place and in the community.

6. Traditional gender roles can have an
effect on a child’s learning. They can
create an imbalance on the work load of
boys and girls which can influence how
they perform at school. Girls find
themselves busy at home most of the
time and have less time for studies
compared to the boys. The girls also do
not have enough time to play.

7. Gender disparity:
Girls and boys perform various tasks. This
can affect their school performance and
lead to inequality in opportunity between
men and women.
Activity:
Take a tally in the number of boys and
girls in school to confirm this.

8. Gender issues:
These are factors which affect girls,
women, boys and men negatively.
Gender issues affect equality between
girls and boys. They include, poverty,
early marriages and child labor. These
issues need to be addressed if we are to
become developed nations.

9. Gender stereotype:
A stereotype is a fixed impression, opinion or
belief which is applied to a group of people or
individuals within the group. For example: it
is a stereotype that women belong to the
kitchen, boys are better than girls, boys are
good in sciences and math subjects than girls
etc.
Children growing up in such communities may
hold such stereotypes which may eventually
affect their academic performance.

10. How can you change this attitude which
is negatively affecting women in
Kenya?
In some communities for instance there are
beliefs that:
A loved wife must be beaten.
Uncircumcised girl is undisciplined.
A home without a man is like a corpse without a
head.

11. Think about your experiences. Do you feel
like you were being treated differently
because of your gender? Was the
treatment negative or positive? What do
you think members of the other gender
felt about you being treated this way?

12. Note
If you received negative treatment as a
female perhaps it helped to reinforce
the male feeling of superiority. On
the other hand if you received a
positive treatment, do you think it
may have been to the disadvantage
of the other gender?

13. Gender disparity in primary
schools
Enrolment:
There is gender disparity in primary school
pupils’ enrolment. Some schools have more girls
and some have more boys but reaching class
eight, there are more boys than girls who sit in
their K.C.P.E examinations.

14. Drop-out rate:
There are more girls than boys
who drop out of school in some
regions while more boys than
girls drop out in other regions.

15. Classroom interaction:
Gender disparities can occur in classroom
participation.
Girls may participate better in subjects
they feel they should perform well in, e.g.
Home science, unlike boys who have been
brought up to believe cooking is girl job.
On the other hand boys will dominate in
mathematics, science where they feel
confident and think it is a male subject.

16. Some communities and religious groups
encourage girls to sit away from boys. If women
do sit amongst men they are not expected to
contribute to discussions. Children are aware of
such cultural requirements from very early on.
In some communities girls have been made to
believe that they are not as clever as boys and to
seek guidance and leadership from boys. This
gender disparity is carried to class hence boys
dominate classes in such cultures.

17. Do you ask girls and boys
different types of
questions? Why?
Our own attitude as teachers and
expectation of girls and boys
participation influences the way
they participate in class.

18. Performance:
Even performance in subject
projects may vary. Due to gender
roles in society, girls tend to opt
for Home science and C/RE
oriented projects while boys go
for projects in Math, Science and
Music.

19. Gender disparities in learning
resources
Teaching/learning resources may bring gender
disparities in learning. This is particularly in
gender stereotyping in students’ and teachers’
books.
Think for example of the Home science books.
Pictures in these books depict women carrying
out typical tasks around the home. In other
text books men are usually portrayed as
superior to women in many ways.

20. Causes of gender disparities:
1.Socio-economic factors
2.Socio-cultural factors
3.Biases in resources
4.Teachers’ attitude and
classroom interaction

21. Socio-economic:
The high cost of education and our
deteriorating economy has reduced the income
available to families. This makes it difficulty for
families to educate their children. In
communities where girl’s education is not
particularly valued, poverty can further
aggravate their lack of access to education.
Parents with scarce resources choose to
educate their sons instead of their daughters.

22. Socio-cultural:
• Many parents and community members may
feel that educating girls is a waste of time and
money, as they will eventually be married off
so that their education will only be of benefit
to their husbands and the family they marry
into.
• Some parents also believe that is their sons
who will take care of them in old age. To
ensure that their sons are well equipped to
take such responsibilities, they take them to
school leaving girls.

23. • Some communities believe that its men who
are supposed to take care of the families. To
such communities, its needless to educate
girls.
• Some communities view schools as places
where girls’ morals can be corrupted because
of the amount of time they spend with boys.
• The long distances that girls may travel
between school and home also worries some
parents

24. Teachers’ attitude and classroom
interaction
You, as a teacher, will have your own attitudes
and expectations about your male and female
pupils. These will be influenced by your
upbringing, as well as by society.
These attitudes may be reflected in statements
such as:
“Girls are not as bright as boys”
“Boys are better in sciences and math than
girls”
“Girls simply don’t work as hard as boys”

25. Note:
Classroom setting is very crucial. You
need to analyze and address it in order
to create an enabling learning
environment for both girls and boys.
Girls may often not answer questions as
quickly as the boys. This is not because
they do not know the answer, but
because their socialization does not
allow them to take the risk of being
wrong.

26. • Girls need more time and patience from you, so that
their confidence can be built. They especially need
confidence developed in subjects considered to be for
males, e.g. math and sciences.
• Boys may need more time to answer questions in
traditionally female subjects.
• The problem may e aggravated by the fact that female
teachers, who in most cases teach English, may be less
interested in boys who are not good in language
comprehension.
• Similarly, male teachers who mostly teach applied
subjects may be less interested in the girls they think
are not good in practical subjects.

27. The school environment:
Physical facilities available to both boys
and girls may have a great impact on
their learning.
There are many ways we can make the
school environment more gender
friendly, especially in the provision of
facilities and participation in school clubs.
Another issue in relation to space is lack
of separate toilets/latrines and
harassment of girl pupils by boys.

28. Solutions to gender disparities
1. Use of role models:
A role model can be a person of either gender
who is successful in their career or job, school
subject, or as a parent or community leader.
Some community leaders, including chiefs,
counsellors and church leaders can be effective
role models.
2. Gender sensitization:
Through discussions during parents’ day, the
school can take the opportunity to discuss
gender disparity to discuss gender disparity in
education.

29. 3. Guidance and counseling:
Girls need to be guided to prevent getting
pregnant and dropping out of school.
4. Making the school gender friendly:
An attractive environment can encourage both
boys and girls to stay in school. Think of ways
of encouraging girls to participate in as many
games and clubs as possible. You may think of
starting gender club in the school.
These are some of the streams of thought and
many others you may think of.

30. Stream of thoughts

31. Summary
we have considered how to promote equal
learning opportunities for both boys and girls
and how you should reduce gender disparities
in your school. You can begin to do this
through role models, gender sensitive teaching
approach and classroom interaction. Parents
can also be gender sensitized through talks by
role models, drama and poems by the pupils.

32. References:
Kyriaiou, C. (1996); Effective teaching
in school “Theory and practice”
Stanley thorn Ltd.
Skelton C. (1989); Whatever happens
to the little women. Open university
press.
Weiner G. (1985); Just a punch of
girls. Open University press.

33. THANK YOU