‘They are not serious like the boys’: gender norms and contradictions for girls in rural Kenya

Abstract

This paper reconsiders urban–rural and modern–traditional dichotomies by exploring the multiple and contested gendered issues that secondary school girls face in rural Kisii, Western Kenya. Findings are drawn from a qualitative case study and explore the ways that gendered norms interact with new ideas of gender equity in and out of the classroom. It is argued that this rural setting offers a highly complex environment for girls in local day secondary schools who often face multiple challenges; many of which are at risk of being overlooked by assumptions that the rural context, where the girls live and are educated, is timeless, static and isolated. Implications are considered for the reconceptualisation of ideas of gender equity in education to go beyond quantitative measures such as enrolment and parity of attention in class to account for out-of-school challenges and the ways in which girls are treated while in school.

Keywords:

• gender
• education
• rurality
• Kenya
• teachers
• self-worth

Funding

This work was supported by the ESRC via a 1 + 3 doctoral studentship.

Notes

1. The community, schools and participants are given pseudonyms throughout this article. The community is known as Inka with two schools by the name of Omwana and Eskuru.

2. There are three types of public secondary schools – national, provincial and district – in Kenya. The distinction is based on the catchment base for each type of school – national schools accept students from nationwide, provincial schools from the province and district schools only take students from the local district. This does not mean that all students go to school; at the secondary level, estimates from within the community suggest that around 50–60% attend. Although secondary education is nominally ‘free’ in Kenya, there remain costs such as lunch, uniform and exam fees which can act as barriers for students to access secondary school.