ABSTRACT
Both male and female role models need to be availed to a child’s environment. Doing so helps to ensure a balanced gender typing, where children become aware of their gender, recognise other people’s gender as well as behave appropriately through the adoption of values and characters required of their sex by the society. However, there is a large disparity as far as gender is concerned in the early childhood workforce. This is in spite of a continued enrolment of male students for training in Early Childhood education in Kenyan universities and colleges. The purpose of the study was to find out the factors influencing male students’ enrolment for training in early childhood education. This was intended to provide important information that will be useful in addressing gender disparity in early childhood service delivery. The objectives of the research were to find out the economic, personal and source of information related factors that influence male students’ enrolment for training in Early Childhood education. This information will be beneficial to policy makers, researchers as well as institutions. The research was guided by Donald Super’s theory of career development and Krumboltz’s social learning theory of career which presents a career choice as being affected by factors related to an individual and those in his/her environment. The research employed a case study design where interviews were used in the process of gathering data from male students pursuing diploma and degree in Early Childhood Education at Kenyatta University. The University offers early childhood education under three modes thus attracting a large number of self-sponsored and government sponsored students from across the world. The target population was 286 male students pursuing diploma and bachelor’ degree in ECE. The population sample used was 50% of all the male students pursuing diploma and degree course in Early Childhood across the three study modes consisting of Open, Distance and e-Learning, Institution based and regular modes of study. The total number of respondents was 143 male students. Three sampling methods were used in selecting the respondents. They included stratified, purposeful and simple random. Male students’ enrolment for training in Early Childhood Education formed the dependent variable, while factors that influence the male students’ enrolment for training in Early Childhood Education served as the independent variables. For the purpose of this research, the independent variables had been categorized into personal, economic and career information source related factors. The researcher established content validity through item analysis. Test-retest method was used to test the reliability of the instruments. The researcher employed qualitative data analysis. Data was organized into themes and sub-themes guided by research objectives. Personal factors influencing male student’s enrolment in ECE were found to include; high school grade, career research, high prospects of employment in ECE, view of ECE as an easy course and presence of a role model. The economic factors included limited finances to cater for other courses, restrictions placed on students’ recruitment and opportunity for job promotion. The various sources of information identified were experts, peers and the family. The research further established that most of the career information were not able to provide adequate career information. Knowledge on the factors will inform the process of addressing gender disparity in ECE especially in preschools. The researcher recommends that a further study be conducted to find out whether there is a difference among the factors influencing male students’ enrolment for training in ECE and those influencing the female students. There is also a need to conduct a study among men who have already completed training in ECE but work in other fields. Such a study would help to find out why they choose other professions even after training in ECE.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Introduction
This chapter will entail; background of the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, objectives of the study, research questions, significance of the study, delimitations and limitations of the study, assumptions of the study, conceptual and theoretical framework and operational definition of terms.
Background of the Study
Early childhood is an important stage in life. According to UNICEF (2005), early childhood covers the age bracket between birth and eight years. This is the period during which life experiences have the highest impact in one’s life. Literature has documented that developmental deficiencies that occur during this period are difficult to reverse. With this understanding, it is imperative that quality environment be provided to enhance the child’s holistic development during this period.
One way of ensuring that the appropriate environment is availed for the child, is making sure that there is adequate representation of male and female models in a child’s environment. This is important because for a balanced gender typing, children need gender appropriate role models to emulate. Farquhar
(2012), on his part explains that children who have solo mothers need a male
role model so that boys learn what it is to be a man, while girls learn how to relate to men. In particular, the lack of male educators in ECE impacts negatively on boys. As research points to women favouring girls and reinforcing feminine attributes, boys may actually be currently disadvantaged (Cooney & Bittner, 2001; Farquhar, 2005). According to MacNaughton and Newman (2001), male educators can induct boys into masculinity, and may help those who are lacking in positive male role models at home. In addition, male educators provide children with opportunities to experience different approaches to play and interactions, and are able to model behaviour that breaks through male stereotypes. A case study by Sumsion (2005), illustrates that male educators are better able to identify with and respond to boys effectively than female educators because they share an understanding of boys’ experiences, perspectives and an essential masculinity.
Unfortunately, available data presents a different scenario. The number of men working in the field of early childhood especially as teachers has been noted by research to be very low compared to that of women. This is a challenge globally, regionally and as well locally. At the global level, Moss (2003), found out that women were overrepresented in all spheres of early childhood workforce. In his research, Moss found out that in Netherlands, 85% of the teachers were women, while 15% were men; in the United Kingdom it was 86% women against 14% men and in Denmark it was 76% women against 24% men. Inan, (2010) and Sumsion, (2005) have emphasised on this by asserting that even in Western
societies, where pre-school education is well-established, the percentage of male teachers in pre-school education varies from 1% to 4%.
Africa too has had a fair share of this gender disparity in early childhood service delivery. According to the National Centre for Educational Statistics (2003), only 2% of the teachers in kindergarten through third grade in sub-Saharan African were men with the rest being female. In preschool and childcare centres, the proportion was even less. This has further been emphasised by Wallet, (2006) who concludes that, in sub-Saharan Africa, even as many education systems are rapidly undergoing change, with increased access to education, this has not been matched by increased male teachers’ presence in early childhood education. According to UNESCO (2006), 99% of the ECE teachers are female while their male counterparts take 1%.
In Kenya, gender disparity has also been evident. A study by Waithaka (2002) among schools in Thika District revealed that out of a total of 166 pre-school teachers only one was male. Gakii (2004) found out that out of 475 pre-school teachers in Miriga Mieru division, only two were male. This information presents high gender disparity not just in Kenya but in the entire world as far as service delivery in early childhood is concerned.
Several factors have been associated with this gender disparity in early childhood. Farquhar (2006) and Cameron (2006) explain that pay and working conditions play an important role in men’s participation in early childhood. They found that men prefer jobs with high pay as opposed to low paying jobs.
They also reported that men preferred to work in areas where their status is high and where they are easily recognised. Dejonckheere (2001) argues that gender view by the society as far as men’s participation in early childhood is concerned has also been a major factor. One’s gender will determine which roles the society requires you to play. In this regard, Childcare, be it professional or volunteer, is seen as women’s work, something that women naturally do and are intrinsically better at. This view keeps men out of ECDE even when they are professionally trained and willing to be part of early childhood programmes workforce. Cameron, (2001), concurs with this statement and clarifies that feminization of early childhood education and care is because it is seen as women’s work. Cameron advances that with the view of early childhood as a woman’s work, the same is transferred to recruitment and training where women may be preferred to men. This could lock out many qualified and willing men from early childhood tasks.
Karanja (2009) in her research on factors leading to gender disparity in early childhood service delivery found that parents’ influence, remuneration, proximity to the Centre, age and number of dependents were among the factors leading to gender disparity in ECDE. According to Karanja, parents preferred their children to be handled by female teachers rather than male teachers and this meant that the number of men who were employed in the sector is low. She further found that low pay in preschools discouraged men from seeking employment in the field of Early Childhood. The situation has further been
worsened by the fact that the Government of Kenya is yet to consider
employment of ECE teachers. This has been compounded by the fact that to date there is no salary structure or scheme of service for the ECE teachers. Fortunately, with the inception of the devolved government, ECE has received some recognition from some County Governments. However, the amount of salary paid to these teachers is still very low. According to the Daily nation (7th January 2014), Bungoma County Government offered to pay Kshs 8,000 and Kshs 10,000 to holders of ECDE certificate and diploma respectively, a pay that is not commensurate to their training.
Although these findings are enough to justify the few men working in the field of early childhood development, it is yet to be established the factors that determine men enrolment for training in early childhood education in Kenyan Universities and Colleges. As per the time of study, a total of 286 male students were pursuing Bachelor’s degree and Diploma in ECE across the four modes of study at Kenyatta University. This number does not match the number of male working in the field. This research therefore intended to establish the factors that influence enrolment of male students for training in early childhood education in Kenya.
Statement of the problem
The importance of having both male and female educators in early childhood has been underlined as a requirement for children’s holistic development. The number of men working in field of early childhood mostly in pre-schools has been significantly low. This number is not consistent with the number of male
students enrolling for early childhood teacher training programmes. Available research has reported extremely low or no male teachers in ECDE institutions. However research has not focused on the factors determining enrolment of male students in ECDE programmes. Understanding these factors could shed light on the male trainers’ motivation for this enrolment. Additionally, perhaps it will shed light on the likely reasons why male ECDE trainees do not eventually work in early childhood development and education centres despite having been trained to do so.
