The Process and Outcomes of Gender Bias in Elementary Schools: A Nigerian Case

Abstract

More Third World schools have become accessible to women in recent years, yet increasing parity in enrollment rates does not ensure equal educational experiences or opportunities for all children. Girls may achieve access to a variety of educational institutions, but they can still experience inequality through various inschool processes responsible for socialization and the inequitable distribution of knowledge. Eliou's work on the education of girls in the Ivory Coast, Upper Volta, and Senegal suggested that equality for girls is not simply dependent on access but on whether or not schooling is differentiated by gender.' She posited that girls are not only discriminated against in selection; once access to schooling is achieved, female students are exposed to even greater disadvantages through the differential distribution of knowledge in secondary school. Eliou stated that girls' eagerness to learn, gain qualification, and do creative work is usually stifled in the first cycle of secondary school, where they are relegated to a general education cycle or to technical education emphasizing clerical or home economics skills. The study reported here posits that this differential process is not simply a product of secondary education but may be established during the latter part of elementary school. As the study takes place in one of the better elementary schools in western Nigeria, the fact