Awareness and practice of gender responsive pedagogy in higher learning institutions: the case of Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
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Date
2017
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Publisher
Journal of Education, Humanities and Sciences
Abstract
Tanzania is among Sub-Saharan African countries where teachers are conditioned by
male-dominated values in their communities. This has been one of the factors
perpetuating gender inequality in various levels of education. With the understanding
that gender sensitive teaching aims at equally supporting the learning of male and
female students, this disparity calls for the promotion and adoption of gender
responsiveness teaching practices in higher learning institutions (HLIs) to correct
gender bias in the learning process. The argument here is that the teaching and learning
environment in higher learning institutions is not only gender-imbalanced but also it is
not well known on whether instructors are aware of gender sensitive teaching
techniques, and to what extent do they mainstream gender sensitive teaching practices
in their daily teaching practises. Thus, this study had two objectives: (a) to assess the
level of awareness in gender responsive pedagogy among university instructors; and (b)
to determine the extent to which instructors practice gender responsive pedagogy
methods in teaching. The study adopted a cross-section survey research design where
the data were collected using a questionnaire from a random sample of 83 academic
staff. The study adopted descriptive analysis using SPSS Computer Software to analyse
the collected data. The findings show that members of academic staff have a partial
awareness of gender sensitive teaching practices. Overall, the findings revealed the
degree of gender sensitive pedagogical teaching practices to be very low. The paper
recommends that universities should continue with awareness campaign and training
workshops to academic staff through gender policy implementation committees
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Keywords
gender, pedagogy, awareness, learning, practice, institutions, education