Puberty-Related Cultural Practices Among Sabaot Youth in Mt. Elgon Sub-County, Bungoma County, Kenya

Puberty remains a critical yet culturally contested stage of adolescent development among the Sabaot community of Mt. Elgon Sub-County, Bungoma County, Kenya, where traditional beliefs, gendered expectations, and initiation-related customs continue to shape how young people experience and interpret bodily and social change. This paper examines the puberty-related cultural practices experienced by Sabaot youth, drawing on data collected through questionnaires administered to 278 respondents, interviews with Baptist Church and clan leaders, and four focus group discussions involving adolescents aged 13 to 19 years. The study adopted a convergent parallel mixed-methods design anchored on Bandura's Social Learning Theory. Quantitative findings revealed that a majority of respondents perceived cultural beliefs and values as shaping adolescents' access to reproductive health information (Mean = 3.87), cultural barriers to open discussion of puberty (Mean = 3.76), stigma and taboo surrounding puberty (Mean = 3.82), and gender expectations during the transition to adulthood (Mean = 3.90). Qualitative data corroborated these results, identifying cultural silence, gendered restrictions, and initiation-linked meanings of adulthood as recurring themes. The paper concludes that puberty among the Sabaot is experienced within a dynamic cultural context in which traditional values persist alongside emerging influences such as education and religious teaching, and recommends that faith-based organisations, schools, and community leaders design adolescent support programmes that address specific dimensions of this experience rather than puberty as an undifferentiated whole.