Teachers' Views on Multicultural Education in Kenya

28 Pages·2017·0.67 MB·English

by  Alex Cornelius

Teachers’ Views on Multicultural
Education in Kenya

Line Kuppens, Sulley Ibrahim, & Arnim Langer

CRPD Working Paper No. 56
February 2018

Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD)
KU Leuven
Parkstraat 45, box 3602, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
Phone: [phone]; Fax: [phone]; http://www.kuleuven.be/crpd
CRPD Working Paper No. 56
Teachers’ views on Multicultural Education in Kenya

Line Kuppens1,2, Sulley Ibrahim1, & Arnim Langer1,3

Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD), KU Leuven1
Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB), University of Antwerp2
Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, University of Heidelberg3

The current paper analyses how multicultural education is perceived and practiced by
secondary school teachers in Kenya; an ethnically diverse African country with a history of
inter-ethnic tensions. We have conducted a large-scale survey among 925 secondary school
teachers in Nairobi, complemented by 68 in-depth follow-up interviews. Our empirical analysis
is based on Banks’ (1993) analytical framework of five dimensions of multicultural education.
Our approach and focus are empirically and methodologically innovative since most studies in
the field of multicultural education remain qualitative in nature, analyse attitudes of pre-service
teachers, and are predominantly conducted in the United States. While Kenyan teachers value
multicultural education and to a lesser extent implement multicultural teaching strategies, our
findings indicate that Kenyan teachers seem to attach more importance to promoting unity than
to recognizing and celebrating diversity at school.

Key words: Multicultural education, Banks, Teacher perspectives, Ethnicity, Kenya, Multi-
method;

2
CRPD Working Paper No. 56
Authors

Line Kuppens is a doctoral student working jointly at the Institute of Development Policy and
Management at the University of Antwerp, and the Centre for Research on Peace and
Development at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven)
(email: [email protected]).

Arnim Langer is Director of the Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD) and
Associate Professor of International Relations at University of Leuven (KU Leuven), as well as
Alexander Von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Heidelberg (email:
[email protected]).

Sulley Ibrahim is a doctoral student working at the Centre for Research on Peace and
Development at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven)
(email: [email protected]).

3
CRPD Working Paper No. 56
1. Introduction

While over the years multicultural education has been variously referred to as ‘a culturally
responsive pedagogy’ (Gay 2013; Sleeter 2011) and ‘an antiracist education’ (Nieto 1996),
arguably the most widely used definition of the concept is offered by Banks and Banks (2001),
who defined multicultural education as follows: ‘An idea or concept, an educational reform
movement, and a process’ (Ibid, 3) that aim ‘to change the structure of educational institutions
so that students from all social class, gender, racial, language, and cultural groups will have
an equal opportunity to learn’ (Ibid, 4). They further argue that it may involve ‘a wide variety of
programs and practices related to educational equity, women, ethnic groups, language
minorities, low-income groups, and people with disabilities’ (Banks and Banks 2001, 6). Thus,
multicultural education is a complex and multifaceted concept and practice, which is not limited
to integrating multicultural content into the school curriculum, and relates to a diverse range of
interventions and objectives. Indeed, as Özturgut (2011, 2) observes in this respect,
‘multicultural education may mean making changes within the curriculum in one school, but a
total change in leadership in another school’.

While the literature on multicultural education has expanded rapidly in recent years (e.g.
Cherng and Davis 2017; Hachfeld et al. 2015; Kaldi et al. 2018), Agirdag et al. (2016) have
identified three important shortcomings in the recent literature on multicultural education. First,
research on multicultural education has been primarily conducted in the United States. As a
consequence, most studies focus on ‘topics that are considered relevant for the United States,
whereas little attention has been paid to topics that are less problematized in the United States’
(Ibid, 557). While some scholars have analysed the concept and its practice in other Western
contexts (for example, Agirdag et al. [2016] study Flanders, Forrest et al. [2016] analyse
multicultural education in Australia, and Hachfeld et al. [2015] focus on Germany), so far, very
few studies have systematically investigated the relevance and application of multicultural
education in Africa (for an exception, see Egne 2017).

Second, most recent studies in the multicultural education literature tend to be qualitative in
nature (see e.g. Kobayashi 2012; Wiggan and Watson-Vandiver 2017). As Agirdag et al.
(2016, 558) rightly note in this respect ‘while these qualitative studies have greatly contributed
to our understanding of the topic (…), an exclusively qualitative approach has important
limitations,’ not in the least because ‘the small sample sizes and the lack of a comparative
perspective within many of these studies do not allow for generalizations’.
4
CRPD Working Paper No. 56
Third, most studies on teachers’ perceptions and practices of multicultural education appear
to overly rely on the study of pre-service rather than in-service teachers (see e.g. Ambe, 2006;
Cherng and Davis 2017). However, an exclusive focus on pre-service teachers severely limits
our understanding of how multicultural education is applied in actual teaching environments
and how ‘contextual school characteristics’ may affect its application (Agirdag et al. 2016).
Although empirical evidence remains thin, prior research among in-service teachers found that
their views and beliefs about diversity are linked to their prior experiences with minority pupils.
Moreover, research suggests that pre-service teachers’ interest and readiness to deal with
diversity wanes as soon as they start teaching (see Kaldi et al. 2018, 4).

The current paper seeks to address the limitations of the current scholarship on multicultural
education identified by Agirdag, et al. (2016) through a unique approach and focus that is both
empirically as well as methodologically innovative within the field of multicultural education.
Our main objective is to analyse how multicultural education is perceived and practiced in
schools in Kenya. We used a multi-method approach, complementing a large-scale survey
among 925 secondary school teachers in Nairobi with 68 in-depth follow-up interviews. The
Kenyan case is not only interesting because, as noted above, hardly any studies have
systemically analysed the perceptions and practices of multicultural education within an
African context to date. But, Kenya is also an intriguing case study because of the large number
of ethnic groups (more than 40) present in the country and the fact that relations between these
groups have repeatedly resulted in political tensions and occasionally violence.1

The paper will proceed as follows. In the next section, we will discuss the relevant literature on
multicultural education. We will particularly discuss Banks’ (1993) five-dimensional framework
of multicultural education, which will form the basis of our empirical analysis. Section 3 then
introduces the case study of Kenya. In section 4, next, we will explain our methodology and
data collection, and present the analysis of our results. Section 5 concludes.

2. Multiculturalism and Multicultural Education

1 Ethnic groups are defined as ‘groups with ascribed membership usually but not always based on
claims or myths of common history, ancestry, language, race, religion, culture and territory’ (Ukiwo
2005, 8).

5
CRPD Working Paper No. 56
Multiculturalism affirms each group’s right to maintain its own language and culture, and to
participate fully in the civic culture of the democratic state – as long as each group conforms
to a set of basic state values (Castles 2004, 25). It is diametrically opposed to the concept of
assimilation, which expects from ethnic and linguistic minorities that they forsake their original
culture and adopt the mainstream culture (Bennett 2001, 173; Castles 2004, 23-25). While
assimilationists believe that multiculturalism heightens and deepens ethnicity at the expense
of nationality, multiculturalists claim that assimilationist policies alienate minority group
members, both within their home culture and within the national civic culture (Banks 2004;
Ladson-Billings 1995; Stephan and Stephan 2001).
Assimilationist educational policies treat inter-group differences as if they do not exist, and use
uniform curricula and teaching strategies that are often based on the language, worldview, and
values of the dominant group in society (Sleeter 2011, 8). Multicultural curricula and
pedagogies, on the other hand, are culturally responsive and build on the cultural knowledge,
frames of reference, and prior experiences of pupils (Bennett 2001; Gay 2013; Ladson-Billings
1995).2 The assumption is that such culturally responsive curricula and teaching styles will
enhance the achievements of minority groups and promote equity (Stephan and Stephan
2001, 51). The multicultural approach originated in the American Civil Rights Movement of the
1960s, which denounced the low educational achievement of Afro-American pupils,
attributable to, among others, a curriculum primarily reflective of Anglo-European American
perspectives, low teacher expectations of Afro-American pupils, as well as disproportionate
disciplinary referrals of pupils from the Afro-American community (Banks and Banks 2001, 5;
Bennett 2001, 172; Sleeter 2011, 11). The scope of multicultural education soon thereafter
expanded to include a wide range of cultural groups, such as women, handicapped persons,
ethnic groups and various regional groups (Bennett 2001, 171; Nieto 2017, 5).
Multicultural education is alternately referred to as culturally responsive teaching (Gay 2013;
Sleeter 2011), a culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings 1995), equity pedagogy,
sociocultural teaching, or social justice teaching (see Morrison et al., 2008; Sleeter 2011). To
date, there is no consensus on the precise goals, scope, and boundaries of multicultural
education (e.g. Bennett 2001; Özturgut 2011; Sleeter 2014). More than ‘a single course or
program’, multicultural education ‘represents a wide variety of programs and practices related
to educational equity’ of all groups’ (Banks and Banks 2001, 6; see also Sleeter 2011; Stephan
and Stephan 2001). Examples include the development of inclusive curricula and multicultural
workshops for teachers. While diverse frameworks have been developed to conceptualize and

2 Alternatively, a ‘colorblind’ approach can be adopted, which treats pupils from different backgrounds equally
and downplays differences, all the while recognizing and appreciating diversity – this positive connotation of
diversity differentiates this approach from assimilation theories (Hachfeld et al. 2015, 46).
6
CRPD Working Paper No. 56
analyse multicultural education (see, for example, Bennett 2001; Morrison et al. 2008), we use
the five-dimensional framework by Banks (1993), as this is the most commonly used
framework in the field (Agirdag et al. 2016). This framework consists of five interrelated
dimensions, which are defined as follows (Banks 1993; Banks and Banks 2001):
1. Content integration: ‘The extent to which teachers use examples, data and
information from a variety of cultures and groups to illustrate key concepts, principles,
generalizations and theories in their subject area or disciplines’ (Banks 1993, 5);
2. Knowledge Construction: ‘The procedures by which social, behavioural and natural
scientists create knowledge and how implicit cultural assumptions, frames of
references, perspectives and biases within a discipline influence the ways that
knowledge is constructed within it’ (Banks 1993, 5);
3. Prejudice Reduction: ‘The lessons and activities teachers use to help students
develop positive attitudes toward different racial, ethnic and cultural groups’ (Banks
and Banks 2001, 21);
4. Equity Pedagogy: ‘Teachers use techniques and methods that facilitate academic
achievement of students from diverse racial, ethnic and social-class groups’ (Banks
1993, 6);
5. Empowering school culture and social structure: ‘The process of structuring the
culture and organization of the school so that students from diverse racial, ethnic and
social-class groups will experience educational equality and cultural empowering’
(Banks 1993, 7).
In addition to these five dimensions, Banks (1989, 1993) identified four different approaches
to adopt multicultural content (see also Agirdag et al. 2016). In the contributions approach,
first, the teacher confines multicultural content to the discussion of heroes and holidays that
are important to cultural minorities, as well as to tangible cultural aspects such as dress and
food habits –the so-called ‘safe’ topics of cultural diversity (Gay 2013). This approach is
insufficient as a form of multicultural education: Once learning about cultural traditions
becomes an end in itself, ‘cultural celebration’, as Sleeter calls it (2011), does not only reduce
the scope of multicultural education, but also risks trivializing group differences. Moreover,
there are many teachers, particularly of mathematics and science, who consider such content
irrelevant to their course and therefore – falsely- dismiss multicultural education as a whole
(Banks and Banks 2001, 19). In the additive approach, secondly, teachers integrate themes
and examples about minority groups in their lessons. Although a slight improvement on the
former, this approach remains flawed: It substitutes a political for a cultural analysis and
7
CRPD Working Paper No. 56
ignores the structural inequalities and unequal power relations in society that underlie inter-
group educational disparities (Sleeter 2011, 15). In the third approach, the transformative
approach, or critical multiculturalism (Sleeter 2011), pupils do critically analyse the socio-
political context they live in, and teachers encourage pupils to take multiple perspectives. In
the social action approach, lastly, teachers even motivate pupils to take social action in order
to address structural inequalities.
Whereas most scholars argue that teachers should use a transformative or social action
approach, most teachers apply the contributions or additive approach (Sleeter 2011; Agirdag
et al. 2016). This could be due to a (perceived) lack of necessary inter-cultural knowledge,
competences and skills (Agirdag, et al. 2016; Bennett 2001; Sleeter 2014). Effectively,
teachers with negative inter-group attitudes are less likely to use multicultural materials and
teaching strategies, or use them detrimentally (Banks and Banks 2001, 22). The effectiveness
of multicultural education is hence highly teacher-dependent, hence our focus on teacher
perceptions.
Having discussed the different dimensions and approaches to multicultural education, it is
important to emphasize that multicultural societies always need to find a balance between
recognizing, explaining and celebrating group differences, and maintaining and promoting
unity in the face of these differences. Banks (2006, 208) aptly notes in this respect:
‘Multicultural societies are faced with the problem of constructing nation-states that reflect and
incorporate the diversity of its citizens and yet have an overarching set of shared values, ideals,
and goals to which all of its citizens are committed. Diversity and unity must be balanced in
multicultural nation-states.’ However, it should be noted that finding the right balance between
unity and diversity is not an easy exercise, but is rather an ‘ongoing process and ideal that is
never fully attained’ (Banks 2008, xii). An important aspect of our empirical analysis of Kenyan
teachers’ perceptions and practices of multicultural education will be to find out how they
perceive this balance between unity and diversity in Kenya.
3. Ethnic Diversity and the Kenyan Education System

Kenya is a multi-ethnic nation, where more than 42 ethno-linguistic groups are living together.
The Kikuyu, Luhya, Kalenjin, Luo, and Kamba are the largest groups, with each group
constituting 10% to 20% of the population (Branch 2011, 4). Differences between ethnic groups
are, to some extent, recognizable in terms of names, dress, skin colour, and dialect (Hornsby
2013, 312). Cultural traditions vary between groups, although some practices are shared
between groups. Many ethnic groups in Kenya, for example, practice male circumcision to
8
CRPD Working Paper No. 56
mark the transition from child- to manhood. This practice is, nevertheless, offensive among
other groups, like the Luo (Odhiambo 2004).

Kenya has a history of interethnic tensions and occasionally violence, especially since the
return of multiparty democracy in 1991 (Branch 2011; Hornsby 2013; Kramon and Posner
2016). With the exception of the 2002 elections, elections have been consistently contested
and have repeatedly led to inter-group violence. The presidential elections of December 2007
stand out in this regard. In the aftermath of the contested re-election of Mwai Kibaki, ethnic
clashes erupted between supporters of the incumbent president and his opponent Raila
Odinga. The fighting caused the death of over 1,000 people while many others were wounded
and/or displaced (Kramon and Posner 2016, 45). Ethnic conflict in Kenya is symptomatic of
underlying historical grievances however, that date back to colonial times but persisted under
the post-colonial state, including most notably issues of land ownership (Hornsby 2013).
Although currently under review (Daily Nation 2018), Kenya’s education system is based on
the 8-4-4 model of education that was introduced in 1985 by President Moi (Wasanga et al.
2012). It consists of eight years of primary school, followed by four years of secondary
education, and is completed by four years of higher education. To progress from one level to
another, students have to pass national examinations at the end of each cycle. As stipulated
by the national goals of education, educational policies in Kenya seek to foster a national
identity and bridge ethnic divides (Mwaka et al. 2013). To promote a common national identity,
pupils are, for example, required to wear a uniform and receive schooling in English and
KiSwahili – although they can attend the first three years of primary school in their mother
tongue (Wasanga et al. 2012). At the same time, schools also promote diversity, among others
through courses such as Peace (primary level) and Life Skills (secondary level) Education
(Smith et al. 2016). To promote inter-group contact, moreover, teachers are encouraged to
teach outside of their home region. The mere structure of public schooling also fosters inter-
group contact, at least within the upper tier schools: Public schools are divided in a four-tier
hierarchy of National, Extra-county, County and District schools. The categorization is based
on regional quota in combination with pupils’ score on the national exams (Lucas and Mbithi
2014). Whereas District schools, usually day schools, admit low-range achieving pupils from
within the school district, National schools, which are on average boarding schools, attract the
best-performing pupils from all over the country – Extra-county and County schools are in
between.
Ethnic politics have nonetheless affected education. Both Kenyatta as well as Moi invested
disproportionally in the education system of their home regions (Alwy and Schech 2004). It
9
CRPD Working Paper No. 56
may not surprise then that having a coethnic as president during one’s school-age years is
positively associated with the level of schooling one has acquired (Kramon and Posner 2016).
Socio-political tensions influence the education system as well. The post-election violence, for
instance, forced many teachers and pupils to leave school for safety reasons (Smith et al.
2016, 68).
4. Empirical Analysis
4.1. Data and Methodology

This study examines how multicultural education is perceived and practiced by secondary
school teachers in the county of Nairobi, Kenya. Nairobi is the capital of Kenya, which houses
virtually all of Kenya’s 42 ethnic groups. We applied a multi-method design. In a first phase,
we conducted a large-scale survey among 925 secondary school teachers during the month
of June 2016.3 While administered in a group setting, each teacher responded individually to
the questionnaire making use of a tablet (Samsung S5) on which we installed the well-known
survey application Qualtrics (Qualtrics LLC, Provo, UT). Schools were selected randomly from
a list of official secondary schools in Nairobi (258) after stratification by municipality and size
of schools.4 In total, 64 schools were selected, which differ widely in terms of size.5 The
smallest school in the sample accommodated 21 pupils compared to 1500 in the largest (M=
384.86, SD= 390.229). Of the selected schools, 24 were public (5 national schools, 1 extra-
county, 12 county, and 6 district schools). The teacher and student populations of the schools
were rather diverse – perceptions of ethnic diversity were measured on a 10-point scale:
M =6.34, SD = 3.14; M = 6.84, SD = 3.08.
teacher population teacher population student population student population
Within every selected school, all teachers were invited to participate – no matter subject taught.
Nevertheless, only those teachers who were present the day of the survey eventually
participated.6 Except for a handful of teachers who refused participation – largely because of
a heavy workload, nearly all teachers consented to participate (cooperation rate of nearly
100% and response rate of 69%). The majority of these teachers is male (52.2%). With regard

3 The research was approved by the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation, as
well as by all District Education Offices involved.
4 This list was provided by the Ministry of Education. There were 9 municipalities in Nairobi county at
the time of study. We selected 13 schools in Dagoretti, 11 in Embakasi, 8 in Lang’ata, Kasarani and
Starehe, 6 in Westlands, 3 in Kamukunji and Makadara, and 4 in Njiru. Concerning the stratification by
size of schools, we first sorted the schools by number of pupils, and subsequently by number of
teachers in the school.
5 Two selected schools apparently no longer existed and were replaced by the most similar school on
the list.
6 Schools were revisited multiple times until we surveyed at least half of the teaching staff.
10