Kenyan Civic Education: A Source of Empowerment?

Guided primarily by critical constructivism as the theoretical framework, this dissertation examines the extent to which civic education in Kenya creates dialogic spaces where issues of social difference, peace and democracy are addressed. The participants of the study included four history and government teachers; four Form 1 classes; principals of the two high schools and one curriculum developer. History and government was selected because one of the course’s objectives is to develop responsible and active citizens who would participate in fostering peace and democracy. In this study, peace is conceptualized as the absence of both direct and structural violence, and democracy is conceived, not merely as majority rule, but as exercising one’s opinions where citizens’ contributions influence decisions and have control over public policies that govern their lives. Using observations, interviews and document analysis, the study focuses on pedagogical practices, educators’ and students’ views about civic education in two public schools in Nairobi. The two sites were selected because the students came from diverse social and ethnic backgrounds and the schools offered co-education. Therefore, the schools’ student demographics provided the kind of social differences that are the focus of this study. In the analysis, attention was paid to the official curriculum and the way teachers enacted the curriculum to foster peace and social justice. Findings indicate that although the official curriculum stated the course should foster peace and social justice, the enacted curriculum gravitated towards transmission of facts. Consequently, the enacted curriculum did little to empower students to think critically; it hardly created opportunities to encourage discussion of societal issues that would promote peace and democracy. Several factors such as prescribed official curriculum, standardized examinations, lack of resources, students’ inadequate English skills, and inadequate teacher training influenced and shaped teachers’ pedagogical practices. Despite this, teachers struggled to exercise their agency by navigating through some of these challenges to achieve what they believed were the objectives of the course. These findings pointed to the need of establishing ways of addressing these challenges in order to make civic education more relevant and meaningful to students and to the Kenyan society.Ph