An exploration of the gendering mediating students' attitudes and experiences in the formal academic curriculum at secondary school level in Libya

Introduction: The study was conducted to explore the gendering mediating students’attitudes and experiences towards the formal academic curriculum at secondary school level in Libya.The problematic nature of the link between access, quality of schooling and gender equality inthe curriculum in Libya is not sufficiently recognised. Methods: A total of 800 secondary students (ages 15-20), (males=389, females=411), who were from urban (n=360=45%) and rural (n=440=55%) localities of Libya completed a questionnaire designed to respond to a 5-point Likert scale of 19 items to elicit and to find out the key factors that influence students’ gendered perceptions, interests and characteristics of their future subject directions towards the aspects of school academic curriculum. 16 semi-structured interviews were also followed up to gain a deep understanding of the issues and enrich the validity of the questionnaire evidence. The statistical analysis software Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was applied. The t-test statistic was used to compare the means and test the significance of any possible differences that existed between male and female responses