Browsing by Author "Namatende-Sakwa Lydia"

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Agency within Crevices of Subordination: Female Teacher Educators’ Gendered Lived Experiences in Uganda
(Center for Research on Culture and Gender, Gent University, Belgium, 2016) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia
This study is an investigation into gendered lived experiences of female teacher educators in a leading Ugandan university. I focus on the ways in which they have navigated the patriarchal gendered order in Uganda, in relation to the pervasive victim narrative used to produce women in the global South and/or Third World. In this chapter, I first reflect on how I came to focus my study on female teacher educators’ lives within notions of the victim narrative. Secondly, I engage with literature challenging the monolithic victim narrative. Thirdly, I interrogate experience as a key concept for this study from whence the research questions emanate. This is followed by the context, significance, overview of research methods, and organisation of the dissertation respectively.
Beyond a focus on textbooks: Negotiating English language and physics gendered textbook constructions in Ugandan secondary school classrooms
(ProQuest LLC, 2017-05-17) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia
This study exceeded the dominant focus on textbooks to include teacher and student classroom engagements with them. It was guided by three research questions: i) In what ways might English and physics textbooks in Ugandan secondary schools construct gender? ii) How do teachers use gendered texts in the classroom? What discourses and practices circulate within teacher and student “formal” classroom interactions around gendered texts? iii) In what ways do teachers and students respond to gendered constructions within their school textbooks? What discourses and practices are cited in their responses? Informed by a feminist post-structural framework, I made use of a qualitative case study approach, with documentary analysis, classroom observations, and in-depth as well as group interviews with teachers and students respectively, to tap into discursive resources that informed negotiation of gender as constructed in English and physics PREVIEW textbooks in two diverse school sites in Uganda. The data analysis was undertaken using feminist post-structural discourse analysis and reflexivity. My findings revealed firstly, that while gender as constructed in English textbooks has shifted from invisibility of women to their marginalization, gender as constructed in physics textbooks continues to privilege a masculine image. Secondly, contrary to teachers’ claims, their text selection and use was implicitly informed by gendered essentialist assumptions. Thirdly, teachers and students did not passively take up gendered images as produced in their textbooks. Rather, they weighed these against their own understandings, based on which they took up and/or resisted them. As such, fixing textbooks with more “progressive” gendered images did not guarantee their legitimation. The study provides insights into considerations for constructing gender in textbooks. It also dislodges pervasive assumptions regarding gender as a concern of the text rather than its readers, demonstrating that teachers and students in fact, bring their gendered, sexed, raced, classed lenses as filters against which gendered texts are taken up and/or rejected. The study contributes to the paucity of work on classroom engagements with gendered texts, student perspectives regarding these texts, gender arrangements within African science classrooms. It illuminates how discourses are networked, tapping into discursive resources that inform negotiation of gendered textbooks.
The construction of gender in Ugandan English textbooks: a focus on gendered discourses
(Taylor and Francis, 2018) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia
Informed by a feminist post-structural framework, this study departs from the overriding emphasis on explicit constructions of women in textbooks. It focuses on culturally implicit knowledge and/or gendered discourses that have informed the construction of gender in Ugandan secondary school textbooks. Findings illuminate the construction of women using discourses networked to produce them as emotional, invested in physical appearances, vulnerable, and in need of men. Intertwined within these are mutually supporting discourses that construct them as irrational, passive, nurturing, trivial, empty-headed, and jealous. Women were constructed oppositionally to men, produced as rational, physically fit breadwinners. This configuration of discourses draw on an underlying ‘common-sense’ gender-differences discourse, which secures female/male border maintenance, sustaining unequal power relations. In exceeding the dominant focus on visibility therefore, this study illuminates how women are constructed, illuminating the workings of power through discourse to re-inscribe hierarchical gender-power relations, tackling deeper gender inequalities and hierarchies.
Dude you're a fag: masculinity and sexuality in high school
(Taylor and Francis, 2013-05-07) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia
Through a picturesque ethnographic description, Pascoe’s Dude, you’re a fag: masculinity and sexuality in high school gives a fly-on-the-wall experience of sexuality in high school. Informed by an interactionist approach to gender, the book unveils taken-for-granted ways in which masculinity is constructed through interactions, discourses and traditions like prom, sports and drama. The study was conducted at River High, a high school in California. I found the descriptions of setting, characters, discourses and events so archetypical that I was reminded of my own high school experiences in an African context. The setting is indeed a helpful case to think through contemporary constructions of masculinity, sexuality and inequality.
Exploring gender equality in the health workforce: A study in Uganda and Somalia
(Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET), 2019) Brody Alyson; Namatende-Sakwa Lydia; Ali Ahmed Roda
A Gender Study commissioned by THET in 2017 found that gender inequity is widely recognised as an obstacle for women working in the health sector in LMICs. The study identified three key issues: Discrimination against women, including hierarchical barriers with regards to promotion and opportunities for training and advancement. Stereotyping of the type of activities women should undertake, for instance, patients will often mistake female doctors for nurses or prefer being seen by a male doctor. Imbalances in the proportion of men and women in jobs. i.e men as doctors and senior administrators and women as domestic staff, secretaries and nurses. Led by gender advocates and researchers in Uganda and Somaliland, this report reflects and expands upon the 2017 study, investigating and renewing our understanding of the gendered context in which we are working, aiming to bridge gaps in knowledge and ensure our work is delivering relevant responses to local problems. The first section of this report presents key messages, critical questions and emerging recommendations drawn from an initial gender study commissioned by THET in 2017, and from wider literature on gender equality in the health workforce in LMICs. The report then highlights gender-relevant contextual information on Uganda and Somaliland. The main body of the report explores the key findings of the research accompanied by a series of emerging recommendations intended to form the basis for further discussion and to inform the development of workable gender transformative tools and resources.
From the classroom to the hospital ward: Dr Lydia Namatende-Sakwa on gender mainstreaming in Uganda
(THEFT, 2019-08) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia
My interest in gender equity was largely shaped by my experience as a young English teacher in a co-educational secondary school in Uganda. I completed both my primary and secondary education in single-sex schools which made me somewhat oblivious to the complex gender relations that exist in co-educational contexts. That is not to understate the complexity that can be found in single-sex schools! But, I felt a sense of discomfort with the distinct gendered performance and participation of children in my classroom; I noticed that boys participated more actively in discussions and generally outperformed girls on tests.
Gender Representation in Learning Materials: International Perspectives
(Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2018) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia
Gender Representation in Learning Materials: International Perspectives provides remarkable insight into research on gender and textbooks from an international perspective, illuminating diverse contexts, methodology, raising new questions, and providing pointers for further research.
‘Gendering’ the text through implicit citations of gendered discourses: the construction of gender and teacher talk around children’s fiction
(Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2019-04-08) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia
This study departs from the overriding focus on textbooks, which disregards how readers take them up. Informed by feminist post-structural theory, I analyse the construction of gender in children's fiction texts used in a New York City elementary school. First, I demonstrate that while the children's fiction texts were explicitly female dominated and/or progressive in their construction of gender, a feminist post-structural discourse reading illuminated that they in fact, implicitly cited discourses, which maintained gendered binary constructions and male dominance. Second, in going beyond the text, the study demonstrates that far from ignoring gender to focus on the 'official' curriculum as explicitly affirmed by the teachers, they had in fact implicitly and inadvertently cited, invoked and deployed discourses and discursive practices that inscribed gender differential and hierarchical relations in the use of the texts in the classroom. Third, I provide insights into teachers' lack of awareness regarding how gender is cited in their texts, and enacted in their teaching practices. I argue therefore that this 'talk around the text', which illuminated gendered discourses and practices, is, as well articulated by Jane Sunderland, 'an excellent epistemological site' for the deconstruction of traditionally gendered positions in the classroom.
Government policy on science education in Uganda: A glass-ceiling for women’s access to higher education
(2013) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia; Longman Chia
The paper assesses the Ugandan policy on science education and its implications for girls‟ access to higher education. The rationale behind this policy was to build capacity in the field of science in Uganda. Consequently, science subjects were made compulsory in schools, and 75% of the Government scholarships to public universities made science based. We demonstrate that this has created a “glass ceiling”: it has put girls at a disadvantage by reinstating the former status quo, where access to higher education favoured boys. This is because Ugandan society (at home and in school) discourages girls‟ pursuit of the sciences. In addition, the policy was prematurely implemented with no adequate preparation for girls to take science based courses. Using content analysis, this study found that the policy was not guided by inclusion and/or equity principles to which Uganda committed as a signatory more than two decades ago, to the World Conference of Education for All (EFA) held in Jomtein, Thailand. These principles advocate removing obstacles to learning, and embracing diversity in education so that every learner is included.
‘Madam, are you one of them?’ ‘Reflexivities of discomfort’ in researching an ‘illicit’ subject
(Taylor and Francis, 2018) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia
Informed largely by Affect theory (2004), this paper takes up ‘reflexivities of discomfort’ to reflexively engage with my affective struggles as a Christian, heterosexual, mother, educator, undertaking a study on homosexuality, which is a thorny issue in Uganda. It a methodological prologue, reflecting my thoughts and struggles before I undertake the study. My purpose is not to find solutions, but to lay bare some anxieties and ambivalences, also suggesting the limits of reflexivity. The paper begins with an autobiographical narrative about school in relation to (homo)sexuality. This is followed by an exposition of Uganda’s Anti-homosexuality Bill; my use of reflexivity and affect to inform my affective struggles; my background as it relates to sexuality, providing insights into my researcher positionality. I then engage with moments imbued with high affective/emotive intensity in my preparation to undertake the study.
Networked texts: discourse, power and gender neutrality in Ugandan physics textbooks
(Taylor and Francis, 2018-11-15) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia
Research within science textbooks has dominantly focused on examining explicit representations of women and men using quantitative methodology. The assumption that gendered arrangements are necessarily explicit and therefore visible and countable, overlooks how power works explicitly and implicitly through discourse to produce specific gendered subjectivities. In taking up feminist post-structuralisms, this study contributes to textbook studies within sciences by illuminating both explicit and implicit representations of gender. Using discourse analysis, ‘gender-neutral’ and/or disembodied subjects and objects were ‘unmasked,’ revealing a generic male and/or masculine subject. Gender-neutrality, which is pervasive within the physics textbooks, was thus exposed as a mask for generic maleness/masculinity. I argue that this objectivist science, which remains compatible with a narrow range of student gendered identities, forecloses possibilities for a wide range of scientist subjectivities, to produce a more inclusive physics curriculum, with a greater possibility of developing physics using diverse subjectivities.
Problems of Usage Labelling in English Lexicography
(2011) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia
Landau (1991: 217) stipulates that 'usage refers to any or all uses of language'. It is the study of good, correct, or standard uses of language as distinguished from bad, incorrect, and nonstandard uses of language. Usage may also include the study of any limitations on the method of use, whether geographic, social or temporal. Basically it alerts users that certain terms should not be uncritically employed in communication. This article discusses the treatment of usage in English lexicography. It analyses the labelling practices in six monolingual English dictionaries namely: the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD), the Macmillan English Dictionary (MED), the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE), the Cambridge International Dictionary of English (CIDE), the World Book Dictionary (WBD) and the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (NSOED). Discrepancies in the contextual usage labelling in the dictionaries were established and are discussed.
The representation of gender in English textbooks in Uganda
(Taylor and Francis, 2012-06-29) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia; Barton Amanda
The central role played by textbooks in children’s education in developing countries has been highlighted previously in this journal. This paper reports on how an English-language textbook used commonly in Ugandan secondary schools reinforces gender stereotypes which are prevalent in society. The paper is based on a mixed-methods investigation of gender representation in English in Use, Book 2 by Grant and Wang’ombe, a textbook recommended by the Ministry of Education for teaching English to students aged 14–15 in Ugandan schools. Documentary analysis elicited the data which were analysed quantitatively using Porecca’s framework for the analysis of English as a Second Language textbooks and then qualitatively using critical discourse analysis. This revealed that positive female role models are under-represented and that the language of the text is not inclusive of females. Lesson observations of two teachers using the textbook, along with follow-up interviews, revealed that they mostly ignored gender issues by dealing with them uncritically, purely as a means of enhancing linguistic skills. We argue that the content of such textbooks, and the way in which they are mediated in the classroom, undermine the Ugandan government’s commitment to equity and inclusion.
Without ruffling feathers: Insights on non-threatening femininity
(The Uganda Feminist Forum, 2019) Namatende-Sakwa Lydia
In this paper, I highlight the salience of agency as embodied in performing non-threatening femininity. I argue that the potency within this form of resistance is in its slipperiness and/or elusiveness to power. While radical acts of resistance can reshape reality, they are also more visible and vulnerable to power and/or patriarchy and are as such, more likely to be nipped in the bud. The normative repertoire of the agency as embodied in individual rights, freedoms and empowerment (Evans, 2013; Wilson, 2013), are more likely to be embodied and “entitled” to men within patriarchy. This normative repertoire/script is disturbed in my study which uses women’s narratives of non-threatening femininity, emphasizing relationality, pluralism, collectiveness, communality as a possibility in remaking women’s realities, within socio-cultural structures of subordination. Non-threatening femininity as such, makes it intelligible to locate agency within women’s epistemological and ontological frames. Indeed the women in my study, far from lone rangers in remaking their reality, leant on other people. The women’s narratives are explicit about the networks and relations on which they drew support in navigating gendered constraints. Indeed as Madhok et al. point out, the constraints relate to social, not just personal power relations, highlighting “the need to shift from the more exclusive focus on individual capacities and vulnerabilities to wider power regimes within which we operate” (2013, p. 7). I argue then, that we shift our theoretical gaze in regard to agency towards exploring less overt forms of agency. Indeed Madhok advocates a “displacement of the chief site of agency from free acts to speech practices and ethical reflection” (2013, p. 116) as demonstrated through the women’s narratives.