Difficulties African Women Face in Accessing Education, The Plight of School Girls in Kakamega, Kenya (Innbundet (stive permer))

This book examines socio-cultural and gender-based barriers Kenyan secondary school girls face. This research demonstrates that while it is important to have more girls attend school, girls today are disproportionately placed in inferior schools and confronted with gender-based attitudes that negatively impact their educational opportunities. This study moves beyond the macro-level focus and examines the relationship between school type and gender-based issues within the day-to-day lives of students. The author investigated students' perceptions of their schooling experiences, their home life, and their future life chances at three types of schools. Overall, she found that school type does indeed negatively impact girls' schooling - gender-biased attitudes appear to be more firmly entrenched at the low-quality schools. However, one variable in particular, sexual harassment, occurred at each school and did not differ according to school type. Increasing girls' enrollment opportunities alone will not solve the problems girls continue to face.Therefore, issues of gender equality in the classrooms and school settings are important additional factors to address and close the gender-gap in African education.