Women's Agency and Educational Policy
The Experiences of the Women of Kilome, Kenya
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Highlights the struggles of a group of women from rural Kenya to provide educational opportunities for their children.
Description
This fascinating book examines rural African women's experiences of education in Kilome, Kenya, providing engrossing, and oftentimes heartbreaking, testimony on the cultural, historical, social, economic, and political factors that have shaped, and continue to shape, women's educational and economic opportunities there. As a Kamba woman who grew up in rural Kenya and as one who received an education in the metropolitan cities of North America, the author presents these women's stories not simply from an insider's perspective, but as one who has shared experiences of the issues discussed in the book. Highlighting the struggles these women face to provide their children—particularly their daughters—with educational opportunities, the author draws attention to the gender and power issues that limit women's participation in the public sphere and illustrates how women in Kenya have been largely absent at the national level where educational policies are formulated.
mutindi mumbua kiluva-ndunda is Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations and Specializations at the College of Charleston.
Reviews
"There is a dearth of qualitative studies on African education. This examination of how Kilome women, through the power of individual and collective agency, take advantage of the limited opportunities to challenge and rupture patriarchal ideologies and structures is refreshing. We're given a sense of how these women are crucial to the creation of knowledge and political theory of social change. " — George J. Sefa Dei, author of Hardships and Survival in Rural West Africa: A Case Study of a Ghanaian Community