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Research has indicated that girls’ performance and participation in science classrooms in Lesotho high schools is lower than that of their male counterparts. This later translates into lower participation of women in STEM careers. It is not an issue that is unique to Lesotho. STEM equity scholarship has focused heavily on provision of institutional access to respond to this issue. My research is based on the argument that a focus only on institutional access does not respond critically to the problem as knowledge of school science is significantly impacted by the subjugated and gendered being of the knower. Research also indicates that part of the responsibility for ensuring students’ understanding lies within the teacher. Therefore, in this DPhil research project I interrogate the challenge of low performance and participation of girls in school science in Lesotho not only from an institutional access standpoint but also from a knowledge access perspective. This research is particularly relevant at this moment given the World Bank’s view that there is a ‘learning crisis in Africa’.
Inspired by decolonial feminist scholarship, I use an Exploratory Interpretative Qualitative Methodology to determine how women teachers navigate and negotiate school science in Lesotho secondary schools and what pedagogical choices they make as they do so, as well as what influences these choices. I will discuss my research journey from crystalizing my research questions after the Transfer of Status feedback, gaining access into schools, collecting data in schools to grappling with combining interpretive narrative analysis with reflexive thematic analysis on diverse data in a way that responds to the research questions, all while navigating difficult personal circumstances. The inclusion of personal circumstances in this presentation is crucial given my positionality as a researcher using methodology that relies heavily on researcher interpretation and reflexivity.
