| dc.description.abstract | This case study sought to find out the relationship between adult education and women‟s self-esteem, self-efficacy and women‟s rights awareness. These 3 areas are key elements of psychological empowerment and are a prerequisite to greater social participation. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected through a questionnaire and interviews. The focus was on one of the adult education centers in Starehe Constituency, Nairobi County and participants were sampled using stratified random sampling procedure. Transformative learning was used as the theoretical framework within which the relationship between the acquisition of literacy skills and psychological transformation were discussed. The study hypothesized that the participants would experience transformation by registering a significant change in the self-esteem, self-efficacy and rights awareness as a result of participating in adult education. Data was collected and analyzed from 43 participants, from different levels of participation in the adult education program; 10 from primary basic, 12 from secondary basic, 8 from primary advanced and 13 from secondary advanced. Self-esteem was measured using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, self-efficacy was assessed using the Schwarzer & Jerusalem General Self-Efficacy Scale, while women rights awareness was assessed using 5 items developed by the researcher. Both descriptive statistics and statistical summaries from inferential analysis were used to present the quantitative data while the qualitative data was manually analyzed for emerging themes and presented in narrative form. Slight differences were noted among the different groups of participants in their comparison of means for self-esteem, self-efficacy and rights awareness. The relationship between Adult Education and Self-esteem, Self-efficacy and on Rights awareness was assessed using linear regression. The correlation between participation in adult education and self-esteem and self-efficacy was found to be positive but insignificant while that for participation in adult education and awareness was found to be negative though also slight and insignificant. To find out if there were differences between the four groups, independent samples Kruskal-Wallis and median tests were done. No differences were noted among the groups examined. The independency of the categorical variables was also established using chi-square tests, with age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and religion not exerting any significant influence on the self-esteem, self-efficacy and awareness scores of the participants. An examination of the qualitative data presented mixed results with some participants reporting an increase in their self-esteem and self-efficacy beliefs and others reporting lowered self-esteem and doubts over their self-efficacy. The study therefore concluded that adult education as offered has no significant correlation with the self-esteem, self-efficacy and awareness of women‟s rights of women adult learners. | en_US |
