The emergence of an ethic of care in rural Kenyan schools? Perspectives of teachers and orphaned and vulnerable pupils

Abstract

In the context of HIV, there is considerable debate about the role of schools and teachers as potential sources of care and support for vulnerable children. This qualitative research examines ‘care’ as experienced and practiced by pupils and teachers in rural Western Kenya. In primary and secondary schools, interviews were conducted with 18 teachers and 57 orphaned and vulnerable pupils, alongside Photovoice. Drawing on thematic analysis and an ‘ethic of care’ theoretical perspective, we unpack the informal caring practices of teachers within resource-constrained settings. The research provides glimpses of schools as spaces of care, participation and support for orphaned and vulnerable pupils. Recognising and providing institutional support for the development of an ethic of care in schools may help to tackle the considerable educational barriers facing girls and boys who are orphaned and vulnerable and move ‘care’ closer towards the centre of educational policy and practice in the global South.

Keywords:

• orphaned and vulnerable children
• education spaces
• gender discrimination
• ethics of care
• HIV epidemic
• rural Kenya

Acknowledgements

We thank the pupils and teachers participating in this study. We would also like to thank Jacob Onyango, Caroleen Akinyi Ouma, Nancy Otieno and Vincent Onyango Ogutu for research assistance and colleagues at the Department for Health Promotion and Development, University of Bergen (where the first author was based during the time of the study), for general support. Also thanks to Tatek Abebe for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2016.1214236

ORCiD

Morten Skovdal http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2068-1814

Ruth Evans http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4599-5270

Notes

1. Space does not permit discussion of other authors’ contributions to theoretical debates on care ethics.

2. This qualitative study was granted ethical approval by the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (27655/AH/RF) and The National Council for Science and Technology in Kenya (NCST/RCD/12A/012/043B). The Kenyan Ministry of Education also granted permission.

3. In view of the priority often placed on boys’ education and the fact that girls felt that they had too many responsibilities, boys may have more readily reported missing school, while girls may have underestimated the impacts of caring on their education or perhaps have been more used to juggling domestic, care and paid work demands with schooling.

Additional information

Funding

We thank Norges Forskningsråd (The Research Council of Norway) for funding this project [project number 204219].