Exploring traditional learning and socialisation pathways outside formal schooling among Maasai girls in Monduli, Tanzania

This study explores how traditional learning and socialisation processes shape the lives, gendered roles, and identities of Maasai girls as they transition from infancy to adulthood in Monduli, Tanzania. Anchored in Cultural Transmission Theory and Situated Learning Theory, the study employed an ethnographic design involving 8 months of immersive fieldwork in Meserani and Engaruka. Data were generated through participant observation, in-depth interviews with 12 female elders, and 10 focus group discussions with 60 purposively selected female parents. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to distil contextually grounded themes. First, the findings reveal that Maasai girls acquire cultural knowledge, practical competencies, and moral values through a structured life-course trajectory spanning childhood, girlhood (including initiation), and womanhood, with each stage characterised by progressively gendered expectations and responsibilities related to household management, pastoral work, craft-based economic activities, and reproductive life. Second, the findings show that Maasai girls’ learning and socialisation are structured through gendered moral and social pedagogic practices that shape how girls develop and enact gendered roles and responsibilities within the community, through interlinked learning infrastructures, including moral discipline, domestic apprenticeship, livelihood participation, ritualised social recognition, and play-based mentorship. The study highlights the importance of engaging critically with Indigenous learning systems as complementary to formal schooling, offering insights for designing culturally sustaining, contextually relevant, and gender-responsive educational approaches in pastoralist settings.