S N Chieni Cookson

Educational and Career Aspirations Among Secondary School Girls: a Research Study Carried out in Nyeri District, Kenya S N Chieni Cookson

This book is the result of a study whose aim was to understand the processes through which secondary school girls acquire certain educational and career aspirations. The book highlights the complexity of multiple influences that lead to the girls having these aspirations and the structural factors that affect what they aspire for. It was not the aim of this study to pinpoint a hierarchy of influences upon girls' educational and career aspirations. In fact, data from this study has shown that instead of a situation where influences can be ranked one on top of the other, different factors seem to gain prominence for different girls, in different contexts, at different times. The determination to succeed was evident from the choices that girls made. The study revealed situations where hope and uncertainty existed side by side. The portrayal of education in economic terms reveals a weakness of the education system because there is less focus on the attainment of other goals of education such as intrinsic rewards, personal satisfaction and empowerment. This book is targeted at educational professionals, researchers and postgraduate students with interest in gender and education