| Education reform in Sub-Saharan Africa's post-independence era has generally focused on increasing the supply of schools and the number of students and qualified teachers to fill them (Moulton & Mundy, 2002). Within these efforts, the education of girls has become increasingly important in light of research underscoring basic literacy as critical to personal and national development (Floro & Wolf, 1990).; In Benin, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has focused on girls' education, in part, by developing a program to train teachers in "equity in the classroom" (EIC) strategies. These strategies aim to create "girl-friendly" schools by raising teachers' awareness of gender bias in their instructional and interpersonal interactions. This dissertation presents the findings from a survey of 324 CM1 (fifth grade) teachers, comparing their beliefs about boys and girls across four domains and examining the impact of these beliefs on their use of EIC strategies.; The findings show that teachers, on average, have a more favorable view of boys' academic capability and performance than of girls'. Conversely, they perceive girls' nonacademic behavior more favorably than boys', and they believe that the academic subjects described in this dissertation are more important for girls to study than boys.; Moreover, teachers' beliefs about girls' academic performance affects how often they use EIC strategies with girls. This relationship varies, however, according to teachers' beliefs about the subjects that they believe girls should study. Teachers who do not believe that the academic subjects described herein are important to girls' education use EIC strategies less often with girls perceived as low academic performers and more frequently with girls perceived as high-performing. Conversely, teachers who do believe that this mix of academic subjects is important to girls' education use EIC strategies more often with girls perceived as low performers and less often with girls perceived as high performers. Interestingly, for both groups of teachers, those with no teaching certification use EIC strategies, on average, more frequently than their professionally certified counterparts. These findings lend themselves to further inquiry as education policymakers seek to explore the personal factors that influence teachers' pedagogical decision-making and experimentation. |
