Girls’ Attitudes Towards Science in Kenya

Abstract

This study investigated girls' attitudes towards science in Kenya. It was carried out with 120 girls from four secondary schools in the Eastern province of Kenya. These were an urban single-sex (SS) and co-educational (Co-Ed) school and a rural SS and Co-Ed school. Different schools were chosen in order to explore whether there are any differences in attitudes in SS and Co-Ed schools and in schools in rural and urban areas. The methodology included the use of both questionnaires and focus group interviews. The main aim was to gain insight into the extent and depth of students' attitudes towards science. The findings of the study showed that the majority of Kenyan girls who participated in the study have a favourable attitude towards science. Girls in SS schools were found to have a more favourable attitude than those in Co-Ed schools, while girls in rural area schools were found to find science more relevant than those in urban schools. It emerged from this study that the attitudes of Kenyan girls are influenced by their perceptions of the relevance of science, enjoyment of studying science, perceptions of the suitability of science for a career, and their perceptions of subject difficulty.

Attitude towards School Science in Primary Education in Spain

“…Regarding the school geographical environment, there are just a few studies reporting differences in attitude towards science for students from rural or urban schools (Chetcutia & Kiokob, 2012). The literature reviewed in the Spanish context (Vázquez & Manassero, 2009;Marbà-Tallada & Márquez, 2010) shows results from schools located in urban areas in the Balearic Islands and Catalonia, respectively, but not from rural ones.…”

Capability Approach: Potential for Transformative Education Research on Gender and Culture in Zimbabwe

“…She elaborated that science curricula, school textbooks, teachers and their teaching practices are crucial factors considered to negatively affect students' attitudes towards an interest in science disciplines, since they tend to "emphasize its academic, strongly intellectual and abstract character, and to present it in a decontextualised way, distanced from everyday life" (p.146). Chetcuti and Kioko (2012) and Osborne and Collins, (2001) had similar sentiments: they report on girls' experience of school science and the science curriculum, pointing out that sometimes girls have the impression that science is a dry subject and only for the super brilliant involving mainly the recall of factual knowledge rather than skills. Semela (2010) supported the idea, pointing out, that students in general, and girls in particular, state that science, as a school subject, is irrelevant, and therefore not useful in everyday life.…”

“…However, numerous challenges have been met in this process of attempting to achieve gender equality in education. Researchers have come to some consensus that there exist cultural traits and practices that either constrain or enable achieving gender equality in education (Stromquist, 990;Gordon, 1994;Prasad, 2004;Kalu, 2005;Chikunda, 2010;Chetcuti and Kioko 2012). The purpose of this paper is to argue for the use of Amartya Sen's capability approach as a theoretical tool to enrich the gendereducation discourse with specific focus on culture in Zimbabwe.…”

Patriarchy Rules: Transforming resistance to gender inequalities in science teacher education in Zimbabwe

“…In terms of curriculum practices, most studies point to the lack of gender responsiveness in the pedagogy applied in schools as one major hindrance to improving access, retention and performance of females in sciences (Madziva, 2000;Kalu, 2005;Clegg, 2007;Chikunda, 2010;Christidou, 2011;Chetcuti and Kioko, 2012). All these studies point to traditional male patterns of dominance inherent in the conceptualization, history and theorization of SMTs as key constraints to gender transformation.…”