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Decision points and dilemmas in girls’ schooling and occupational aspirations : female secondary students in Cameroon Gobina, Euphrates Efosi Wose
Abstract
Although contemporary research on gender and education in Africa has thus far focused on girls' access to education, how and why students choose one academic subject over the other has largely gone unexamined. This study attempts to fill the void by inquiring into the experiences and subject choice-making process of 20 girls from different socioeconomic backgrounds in a coeducational secondary school in a quasi-urban town in the South West Province of Cameroon. Through a functional/liberal approach to understanding decision-making, this study draws from status attainment theory, African feminist perspectives on gender, and decision theory and rational choice, to understand the decision-making process of fourth year secondary school girls. Data was collected through participant observation, interviews and a focus group discussion informed by critical feminist ethnographic principles. The study reveals the girls' consciousness of society's low expectations for their success in areas of science and technology, and as a result they enact modes of confronting such challenges. It further discloses that the girls' subject choice decisions are progressive but complex and contradictory. For example, most of the participants described explicit aspirations in seizing opportunities in non-traditional female occupations to enhance their labor market advantage and improve on their future family lives. But these aspirations are tempered with characteristics of the student-personal self. Also revealed in the study, is the major influence gender continues to have on girls' subject choice decisions, which are a function of their socio-cultural modeling both at home and school. This is further determined to be a composite of the socio-economic status of the parents, which was found to dictate the girls' progressive occupational aspirations. The findings have implications for policy makers, curriculum theorists and teachers in Cameroon. Four implications that emerged from this study are the need to: 1) develop equitable education polices; 2) imagine curricula that are grounded in indigenous knowledge and supportive of local culture; 3) apply pedagogical approaches that validate women's ways of knowing; and 4) re-evaluate the economic contributions that women make in small-scale commerce and agricultural production.
Item Metadata
Title |
Decision points and dilemmas in girls’ schooling and occupational aspirations : female secondary students in Cameroon
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Creator | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
2004
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Description |
Although contemporary research on gender and education in Africa has thus far
focused on girls' access to education, how and why students choose one academic subject
over the other has largely gone unexamined. This study attempts to fill the void by inquiring
into the experiences and subject choice-making process of 20 girls from different socioeconomic
backgrounds in a coeducational secondary school in a quasi-urban town in the
South West Province of Cameroon. Through a functional/liberal approach to understanding
decision-making, this study draws from status attainment theory, African feminist
perspectives on gender, and decision theory and rational choice, to understand the decision-making
process of fourth year secondary school girls. Data was collected through participant
observation, interviews and a focus group discussion informed by critical feminist
ethnographic principles.
The study reveals the girls' consciousness of society's low expectations for their
success in areas of science and technology, and as a result they enact modes of confronting
such challenges. It further discloses that the girls' subject choice decisions are progressive but
complex and contradictory. For example, most of the participants described explicit
aspirations in seizing opportunities in non-traditional female occupations to enhance their
labor market advantage and improve on their future family lives. But these aspirations are
tempered with characteristics of the student-personal self. Also revealed in the study, is the
major influence gender continues to have on girls' subject choice decisions, which are a
function of their socio-cultural modeling both at home and school. This is further determined
to be a composite of the socio-economic status of the parents, which was found to dictate the
girls' progressive occupational aspirations. The findings have implications for policy makers, curriculum theorists and teachers in
Cameroon. Four implications that emerged from this study are the need to: 1) develop
equitable education polices; 2) imagine curricula that are grounded in indigenous knowledge
and supportive of local culture; 3) apply pedagogical approaches that validate women's ways
of knowing; and 4) re-evaluate the economic contributions that women make in small-scale
commerce and agricultural production.
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Extent |
13048983 bytes
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Genre | |
Type | |
File Format |
application/pdf
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Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2009-12-01
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0058247
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
2004-11
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.