“African and Asian Response to Racially Segregated Education in Nairobi, 1902–1963” Structural Racism Theory Perspective.

Abstract

This article uses Nairobi as a case study to examine how African and Asian communities in Kenya responded to the establishment of a segregated public education system from 1902 to 1963.It uses the structural racism theoretical framework to showcase how Kenyan communities resisted and adapted to the public education system. The data for the study was collected through oral interviews, colonial government reports and secondary literature. The article argues that racial segregation in the colonial public education system was not an incidental feature of colonial governance but a core structural instrument used by the colonial state to maintain racial stratification. By focusing on the role of Africans and Asians in the development of the public education system in Kenya, the study contributes to the historiography of colonial education in African history.