Working paper 1 (pdf - Institute of Education, University of London

He also describes how mothers come to the school asking for food and emphasizes the greater
involvement of mothers in the school. For example, he notes:
And then the people that are attending the meetings mostly, during the parents meeting, are
the female ones. They are dominating actually, so they are the ones who are making the
school to survive.
Researchers in Kenya noted that that it was mostly mothers who accompanied children into the
school when they had discipline problems suggesting that involvement in education may be seen as
an aspect of care work carried out by women. These connections of mothers to the school point to
particular area where there appears potential to build closer links between the poor community and
the school and to use this as a basis to examine ideas about gender inequalities and how to change
these.
But currently the dynamic to work with parents who are coming into school and showing interest in
their children‟s education appears stalled. In both school settings the blaming poor parents sits quite
comfortably with viewing existing initiatives to ameliorate poverty primarily as charity. In Kenya the
revival of a school feeding scheme is cited by many as important to address the problem of pupil
hunger, but this important aim does go further in requirements of the community or the government.
In South Africa the importance of the school feeding scheme is emphasized by the headmaster who
explains how, in addition to the provincial scheme, they have someone to provide them with bread
twice a week and also talks about giving food to “certain families” – helping the parents as well as the
children. They have also got taxi drivers to help with donating school uniforms.
In the Kenyan focus group discussion which asked participants to discuss a scenario concerning how
they would spend Ksh 250,000 left to the school by a (fictitious) local businesswoman for girls‟
education, participants suggested using funds to pay for stationary and sanitary towels, as well as
travel and fees for secondary school. The emphasis is clearly on the material, reflected in the South
African head teacher‟s belief that what they really need is money:
The top one is finance. If the school can have the finance, most of the things can be solved.
Initially he suggests that this money could be spent on computers, to replace those that were stolen
from the school, seeing this as a way from the community to develop skills that would help them gain
employment. However when reminded that he had identified hunger as the most pressing problem he
agrees, and reiterates the need to buy food for community members.
In both schools the assumption seems to be that, by and large the problems faced by pupils in the
school can be tackled by concrete material interventions to address poverty (as basic needs). The
importance of gender equality becomes set against poverty alleviation – that is you either address
poverty through providing food or clothes OR do „gender‟. The connections between the two are not
seen as evident. Indeed it is suggested that the problem of gender inequality is not deep in the
culture and social relations of the society, but is rather the inadequacy of poor parents to understand
about equality. The means to address poverty through provision of food or cash, which may be seen
as instances of interventions, leave further initiatives on gender equality unspecified
Gender inequality in everyday school life
The texture of everyday interactions in both schools seemed cross cut by gender inequalities. There
is a “gender blindness” in many of the schools‟ activities which provides for some surface elements of
parity but this does not go deeper to address relations of inequality. In the South African school
gender was not considered an issue that needed to be actively taken into account in events such as
the annual award ceremony. Indeed a number of the trophies on display in the principal‟s office had
portrayals of women in traditional guises serving men. Issues such as choosing class monitors or the
head-boy were viewed as simply happening in a gender balanced way without the need for any type
of active intervention. The head teacher explained:
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