This study focuses on illuminating Kenya's urban high school teachers' perceptions of students' diversity and how these differences influence their curriculum implementation, pedagogy, and students' classroom interactions in the learning process. Located within theoretical frameworks of intersectionality and critical pedagogy, the study shows how multiple layered identities and differences identified by teachers interplay and intersect to influence their performance and students' academic success. The theoretical debate over critical pedagogy in diverse contexts shows how Kenya's high school teachers effectively develop classroom environments that address differences and acknowledge arrays of factors that create inequalities. Findings also show that teachers' work continue to be informed by government and institutional policies that favor uniformity and conformity creating contradictions and dilemmas for them. The study applies a mixed qualitative methodology based on interpretive and descriptive phenomenology to inform the study. Participants were selected based on purposive sampling from urban high schools in western Kenya. Data for the study were generated through baseline questionnaires, field interviews, classroom observations, and analysis of archival documents. Findings highlighted arrays of factors identified by participants as contributing to students differences in their specific context. Differences identified by teachers that were common across institutions were academic abilities, entry behavior, primary education backgrounds, proficiency in English language, socio-economic status, and students' motivational status. Some of the factors perceived to influence teaching and learning differed across disciplines, gender of the participants, and the nature of the schools. It was concluded that the impact of these differences on teaching and learning needs to be addressed if high school access, quality, and subsequent academic performance is to be realized for all students in Kenya's high schools.

This study focuses on illuminating Kenya's urban high school teachers' perceptions of students' diversity and how these differences influence their curriculum implementation, pedagogy, and students' classroom interactions in the learning process. Located within theoretical frameworks of intersectionality and critical pedagogy, the study shows how multiple layered identities and differences identified by teachers interplay and intersect to influence their performance and students' academic success. The theoretical debate over critical pedagogy in diverse contexts shows how Kenya's high school teachers effectively develop classroom environments that address differences and acknowledge arrays of factors that create inequalities. Findings also show that teachers' work continue to be informed by government and institutional policies that favor uniformity and conformity creating contradictions and dilemmas for them. The study applies a mixed qualitative methodology based on interpretive and descriptive phenomenology to inform the study. Participants were selected based on purposive sampling from urban high schools in western Kenya. Data for the study were generated through baseline questionnaires, field interviews, classroom observations, and analysis of archival documents. Findings highlighted arrays of factors identified by participants as contributing to students differences in their specific context. Differences identified by teachers that were common across institutions were academic abilities, entry behavior, primary education backgrounds, proficiency in English language, socio-economic status, and students' motivational status. Some of the factors perceived to influence teaching and learning differed across disciplines, gender of the participants, and the nature of the schools. It was concluded that the impact of these differences on teaching and learning needs to be addressed if high school access, quality, and subsequent academic performance is to be realized for all students in Kenya's high schools.

This study focuses on illuminating Kenya's urban high school teachers' perceptions of students' diversity and how these differences influence their curriculum implementation, pedagogy, and students' classroom interactions in the learning process. Located within theoretical frameworks of intersectionality and critical pedagogy, the study shows how multiple layered identities and differences identified by teachers interplay and intersect to influence their performance and students' academic success. The theoretical debate over critical pedagogy in diverse contexts shows how Kenya's high school teachers effectively develop classroom environments that address differences and acknowledge arrays of factors that create inequalities. Findings also show that teachers' work continue to be informed by government and institutional policies that favor uniformity and conformity creating contradictions and dilemmas for them. The study applies a mixed qualitative methodology based on interpretive and descriptive phenomenology to inform the study. Participants were selected based on purposive sampling from urban high schools in western Kenya. Data for the study were generated through baseline questionnaires, field interviews, classroom observations, and analysis of archival documents. Findings highlighted arrays of factors identified by participants as contributing to students differences in their specific context. Differences identified by teachers that were common across institutions were academic abilities, entry behavior, primary education backgrounds, proficiency in English language, socio-economic status, and students' motivational status. Some of the factors perceived to influence teaching and learning differed across disciplines, gender of the participants, and the nature of the schools. It was concluded that the impact of these differences on teaching and learning needs to be addressed if high school access, quality, and subsequent academic performance is to be realized for all students in Kenya's high schools. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

No abstract available / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / gm2014 / Centre for Human Rights / Unrestricted

Primary sources were provided by the Kenyan Embassy to the U.S.A., Kenya tourist offices in the U.S.A. and West Germany, the Economics Department at the University of Nairobi, the Ministry of Finance in Kenya, the Institute of South Africa, and the United Nations. The first chapter provides a brief explanation of the historical and economic development Kenya has experienced since independence. Chapter II deals with the historical development of Kenya's economy. Chapter III discusses the major countries' donation of aid to Kenya. Chapter IV focuses upon aid from international organizations. Chapter V develops Kenya's efforts to use foreign aid efficiently. Chapter VI looks into Kenya's prospects for development through foreign aid. Chapter VII is the conclusion.

Power, and how it is exercised within social relations is pivotal in explaining policy change. Hence, this dissertation explores policy change in Kenya by examining the transfer and subsequent adoption of social protection policies in the form of cash transfer schemes. Instead of the current analytical frameworks drawing from political settlements, political institutions, and ideational approaches in explaining policy uptake, the research studies policy making from a policy transfer and power nexus. The study examines power relations among multiple actors in the national context to explain the adoption of social protection policies. Hence this dissertation articulates power dynamics and asymmetries inherent in policy-making involving national and transnational actors as underpinning policy transfer processes. The thesis is premised on the following interrelated arguments; firstly, I show how transnational actors created and manipulated interests and incentives based on their resource base in three significant ways: controlling the policy agenda, constraining the agency of other actors and influencing the preferences of actors in the policy space. The interaction of interests and resources – financial, and ideas and knowledge – converged to bring about policy change. Secondly, I focus on the role of ideas and knowledge within policy space to show how the creation of a discursive hegemony and a structure of knowledge, social construction and policy narratives played a significant role in shaping learning and influencing national actors. Thirdly, I argue that transnational actors used structural mechanisms based on financing and coerced government to adopt social protection policies through a catalysing mechanism and imposition of conditionalities. The study depicts how transnational actors conditioned and manipulated national context and institutions to align with the idea of cash transfers. This thesis employs a qualitative approach to study policy transfer and subsequent adoption of two cases of transfer schemes in Kenya, the Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) and the Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP). / Sociology / D. Phil. (Sociology)