Storying gender equality in Northwest Uganda: Educators develop contextually- and culturally responsive stories in professional development courses

Abstract

Although gender equality is a stated goal of Ugandan national educational policies and curricula, cultivating gender equality in schools requires gender-responsive pedagogical approaches as well as Learning and Teaching Resource Materials (LTRMs). This paper reports on a research project conducted with a group of in-service, pre-primary and primary educators in Northwest Uganda during two week-long professional development workshops. Using a qualitative, multimodal, feminist participatory action research methodology, we explored gender theory as well as local gender constructs and their impact on educational opportunities and experiences, and ways in which gender constructs and orientations might be reimagined through stories, especially written in Mother Tongue and depicting local cultural contexts. Findings reveal that professional development opportunities can support teachers to explore and gain deeper insight into understandings of gender and gender-based issues, and create contextually- and linguistically-age-appropriate resources (stories) that interest students, promote gender equality, and meet curricular objectives.