Gender Mainstreaming In Secondary Schools’ Boards Of Management In Kenya: A Case Study Of Uriri Sub County, Migori County

Abstract

The study investigated gender mainstreaming in secondary schools’ boards of management (BOMS) in Kenya. The study was conducted in public secondary primary schools of uriri sub County of Migori County, Kenya. The study identified three research objectives and three questions that guided data collection and analysis. The main objective of the study was to investigate gender mainstreaming in board of management in secondary schools in Uriri Sub County. The study had to investigate the influence of cultural factors on gender mainstreaming in secondary schools’ BOMs. Investigation of the influence of socio economic status on gender mainstreaming in secondary schools’ board of management was conducted. Assessment on the influence of education on gender mainstreaming in secondary schools’ board of management was also conducted. The review of related literature covered three themes, namely: cultural factors; socio economic status; and educational level status that addressed objectives of the study. Other relevant literature for the study included an overview of gender mainstream and poly guides on nomination of BOM members. The related literature reviewed led to the identification of knowledge gaps that the study filled. The study addressed three variables. The variables included culture, socio economic and education.The study was guided by Marxist feminism as Advanced by Engel (Edger. 2008). In this theory, there is a parallel argument: the moulding, direction, and expression of sexuality organize society into two sexes, women and men which division underlies the totality of social relations.The study further adopted the descriptive survey design which was used to collect data from two sets of questionnaires and interview schedule. The target population comprised principals, BOM members and nominating agencies in secondary schools. Sample size of 8principals, 120 BOM members and 16 nominating agencies was selected. The total sample size for the study was 144. This conformed to the confidence Interval of 0.05, confidence level of 95 percent which is a Zscore of 1.96 and standard of deviation of 0.5.It was concluded from the study findings that cultural factors and socio economic factors influenced nomination and participation of BOM members.It was recommended that the state department of education should align nomination guidelines with the constitutional rights on the bill of rights. The study further recommended a study on the impact of nominating agencies on gender mainstreaming in BOMS in secondary schools should be conducted. The study might be significant to provide education planners and policy makers in their overall effort to formulate and implement equal participation in BOMs. This study might also be important to researchers for identification of areas for future research.