Gender Prejudice in School Curriculum: A Case of a Kenyan Primary English Textbook

Abstract

This paper has identified curriculum materials as an area that requires focus and serious analysis as far as gender issues are concerned. It studied a primary class five English text course book from a gender lens. It employed a qualitative content analysis to study a case of curriculum material that should present a gender balance of not only masculinity and feminity but also femininity issues as affecting the Kenyan nation. It sought to answer the questions below: how many significant representations of girls and women are in the texts compared to boys and men? What visible roles are they designed to portray about gender orientations and is gender sensitive language used to balance the skewed societal perceptions or which aspects of the text have complied and conformed to the hegemonistic masculinity? In so doing, the aspects analyzed in this text were gender representation in a text as presented on the cover and title page, topic, subject matter and contents. How are both genders not only represented but also presented neutrally doing, caring family and institutional tasks, how are the employment of gender (in)sensitive language (neuter)used to describe both genders. The findings indicate an adherence to the status quo and evidence of gender biases and stereotypes as far as gender roles and representations are concerned. The study concluded that the case under study was a gender blind text and recommended that further case studies that could generalize their findings be executed across the curriculum, that such texts should be revised to be in tandem with the country’s 2011 gender policy document, that a censorship threshold be legislated.