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| Closing the Literacy Gap: A Descriptive Analysis of the Influence of Gender Disparity on Learners' Early Literacy Skills Development in Lagos State
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Mope Edith ADEBIYI, Adedayo Aliu ADEDIRAN, Janet Adenike SALAKO, Akeem Omowumi RAHEEM
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Abstract:
Gender inequality is a persistent form of discrimination where one group is disadvantaged based on gender. This disadvantage manifests itself differently depending on factors like race, culture, political climate, national context, and economic situation. Multiple explanations have been offered for gender differences in literacy skill development but little has been done on analyzing how gender disparity plays out in developing early literacy skills (reading, writing, phonemic awareness) in pre-primary school children in Lagos. Researchers propose two reasons for gender differences in literacy: biology and social-cultural factors. Biological explanations focus on brain development, suggesting girls develop reading skills earlier. Social-cultural explanations highlight how societal norms and expectations may favor girls, putting boys at a disadvantage. Focus. Hence, the study investigated the influence of gender inequality on pre - primary school children literacy skills development in Ojo Local Government Area, Lagos State. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. 100 pre-primary school teachers were involved in the study. A self-designed instrument was used for data collection titled 'Influence of Gender Inequality on Literacy Skill Development in Children Questionnaire (IGILSDCQ)'. The instrument was validated and tested for reliability. The reliability index for IGILSDCQ (? = 0.79). Five research questions were answered using descriptive (frequency count, simple percentage, mean and standard deviation). The findings showed that that gender inequality to some extent influence children phonemic awareness (WA=1.76), the extent to which gender inequality influence children awareness of print is high (WA=2.8), gender inequality to some extent influence children vocabulary development (WA = 2.4), the extent to which gender inequality influence children speaking skill development is high (WA = 2.5) and lastly, the extent to which gender inequality influence children comprehension ability is high (WA = 2.5). It was recommended among others that effort by the school administrators is necessary in the provision of reading materials and literacy skill development packages that are both male-oriented and female-oriented.
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