Inhibiting influences of some traditional practices in the home on girl-childs interest development in science

Abstract

The home is the cradle for development from where the girl-child builds and develops her knowledge, inclinations and interest. Unfortunately, the home which should provide the girl-child the good environment for developing scientific skills has become an obstacle to the girl-child's scientific development. There are a continuum of parental attitudes and traditional practices in the home directed to the girl-child that are considered harmful and obstacles to girl-child's acquisition of the basic scientific skills. These practices vary from disinterestedness on the needs of the girl-child and exploitation to open hostility, over protection and excessive restriction of the girl-child, male preference, absentee parenting and early marriage and so on. The consequences of these practices on the girl-child result to emotional breakdown that is manifested by their lack of self-esteem, lack of self-confidence, poor self actualization and evaluation, learning difficulty, distractibility and destruction of academic ambition of the girl-child. As a result, the girl-child lacks the will power to learn difficult subjects like science and mathematics and thus, develop disinterestedness and poor attitude towards science that has helped to increased low women/girls representation in science. Educational implications are discussed and recommendations were made. Key words: Traditional practices, girl child.