Journal of Pedagogical Research (Feb 2024)
Teachers’ understanding of gender responsive pedagogy and its application in teaching process: Case after teacher training program interventions in Rwanda
Abstract
Gender disparity in education begins in the early years of education with the ignorance of gender-responsive instructions. Despite progress being made toward gender parity, inequalities persist in boys’ and girls’ education, particularly in developing nations. Rwanda addressed this issue by integrating gender into its curriculum. However, the implementation requires teachers’ proficiency in gender-sensitive instructions that prevent gender inequality in the teaching process. To enhance teachers’ understanding and application of gender-sensitive instruction, the African Institute for Mathematical Science, through its Teacher Training Program [AIMS-TTP], supported by the Master Card Foundation, trained teachers on gender-responsive pedagogy. Therefore, this study examines trained teachers’ understanding and implementation level of gender-responsive pedagogy in the teaching process after attending AIMS-TTP training. The study was conducted in 14 districts of Rwanda, and a web-based survey design was used to collect data from 351 teachers selected through purposive and random sampling. They completed a gender-responsive pedagogy questionnaire with a Cronbach alpha reliability of .71. Data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2016 for descriptive statistics and STATA v.18 for hypothesis testing. Results showed that both male and female teachers hold high levels of understanding and application of gender-responsive pedagogy, with over 80% agreement. No statistically significant difference in understanding and application of gender-responsive pedagogy was found between teachers based on gender, school location, school type, and teaching experience. Statistical comparison of teachers’ agreement using the chi-square (χ2 ) test showed a p>. 05. The findings imply that training positively impacted teachers’ understanding and application of gender-sensitive pedagogy. Therefore, we recommend expanding such training in other districts where interventions were not implemented.
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