Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Anthropology." Includes bibliographical references (p. 292-305).

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study examines women’s experiences of formal education in Kenya. The study aims at making visible the cultural, historical, economic and political factors that shaped, and continue to shape, women’s educational and employment opportunities. It also highlights women’s agency exemplified in their struggle to provide their children, and particularly their daughters, with educational opportunities. The study draws attention to the gender and power issues that limit women’s participation in the public sphere. These are issues that policy makers, politicians, and development agents have not and still do not adequately address. The study employs post-positivist research methodologies, particularly feminist methodologies informed by post-colonial critiques. The women in this study are treated as social agents not as victims of men, and of economic and political trends. The women formulate strategies aimed at influencing or shaping the social system in which they are a part. The women’s agency resides in their individual and communal endeavours and is constantly reinvented in the context of political and social change. This research is an analysis of the experiences of 38 women born, raised and partly schooled in Kilome division, Makueni district. It focuses on the educational experiences of rural women living in two villages and a small town in Kilome division, Kenya. I use the women’s discourse to critique the public discourse on education articulated in policy documents produced in the last 30 years since independence in 1963. This study illustrates how women in Kenya have been largely absent at the national level where educational policies are formulated. Policy making has remained male dominated. Policy makers, charged with structuring and restructuring education to meet the country’s development needs, continue to limit women’s agency to the private sphere. The formulation of policies from the male perspective has intensified the public and private dichotomy. Absent in the public discourse on education has been the discussion of how gender, a social construction, has influenced opportunities available to men and women in colonial and post-colonial Kenya. Colonial gender constructions of femininity have continued to limit educational opportunities made available to women in post-colonial Kenya. The Kenyan women in this study are cognizant of how these gendered assumptions shaped, and continue to shape, women’s educational and employment opportunities. They re-negotiate and resist these gendered assumptions and they have become intervention agents for their children’s education. The women’s agency, however, is limited by their lack of economic power. The interplay between gendered cultural assumptions about femininity and the increased costs of schooling imposed by policy makers continue to have a negative impact on women’s education.

The value of post-infancy breast feeding for growth and nutrition has been the subject of debate and controversy. We followed a cohort of 264 western Kenyan children for six months prospectively (mean age 14 months at baseline) to investigate the influence of breast. feeding on growth. Only 14 (5%) children had been weaned by enrolment, and 173 (66%) were still breast feeding at follow-up. For analysis, children were classified into three groups of breast feeding duration as a proportion of the study: 0--49% (n = 42), 50--99% (n = 49), and 100% (n = 173). General Linear Models procedures were used for multivariate analysis. Adjusted means showed that children in the longest breast feeding group gained 3.4 cm (p < 0.001) and 360 g (p < 0.01) more than those in the shortest breast feeding group, and 0.7 cm and 230 g (p < 0.05) more than children in the intermediate group. The greatest benefits of breast feeding for linear growth were observed in households that had no latrine and whose water consumption was below 10 L/person/day. Our results support the recommendation that children in developing countries be breast-fed for at least two years.

No description available.

This research, An Exploration of Women's Transformation through Distance Learning in Kenya, applied Mezirow's theory of transformative learning to investigate how distance learning impacted on women's views about themselves and their position in society. This was done by examining whether distance learning enables women to acquire new self-perceptions about themselves and leads them to challenge the status quo and take action in order to improve their status in society. Three distance learning programmes were studied: the B.Ed. programme at the Faculty of External Studies at the University of Nairobi, Theological Education by Extension, and the Co-operative College of Kenya. This research was motivated through my own biography, with the purpose of identifying and encouraging distance learning practices that promote women's transformation. The research also hoped to draw attention to the study of women's issues in distance learning, as an area that has not attracted much attention in Kenya and to generate information which can be used to inform the use of distance learning methods in a way that favours women. Biographical methods of research were used. This involved listening to women's learning stories, noting their reasons for coming back to study, the barriers that they encountered as they studied and the coping strategies that they used to overcome the barriers. In addition, other methods were used to supplement the biographical data collected from the women. These included focus group discussions, observation and documentary evidence. The approach to data analysis was based on the use of hermeneutics methods of data interpretation. The themes and concepts that emerged from this process were compared with themes and concepts generated through other methods of data collection. The main findings were that distance learning, though based on alternative forms of provision, does lead to transformation, however, women from the three programmes experienced diverse levels of transformation. The B.Ed.programme with its face-to-face component and women with higher education had greater impact on women's transformation than other programmes. Although the TEE programme had face-to-face interaction, their curriculum, which reinforced the negative gender stereotypes in society and does not lead to recognised certificates, could not allow them to achieve this experience. The Coop programme, without the face-to-face arrangement had the lowest transformative effects on women. On the basis of these findings, it was recommended that more distance learning programmes be designed, with increased use of face-to-face components in order to help women achieve transformation. The findings and the discussions thereof also show that prior level of education had far reaching effects on the levels of transformation that women achieved. This led to the recommendation that women's education should be encouraged and the society should be sensitised about the value of educating women. Distance learning also enabled women to achieve economic empowerment, in terms of promotions, new jobs and increased salaries; however this was only noted in the B.Ed. and Coop programmes. The TEE programme, being a church programme had no economic benefits for its women learners. The women in the TEE programme were not happy with the present arrangement and were, therefore, calling for a review of the programme. The findings also showed that women's transformation is not being fully achieved because of non- supportive facilities and the use of learning materials, which reinforce the negative gender stereotypes in society. Therefore, to make distance learning more accessible to women learners and more transformational, the research recommended changes geared towards the creation of women-friendly facilities and learning materials. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

No description available.