IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mth/ijld88/v9y2019i4p60-81.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Educational Inclusiveness: Addressing Society¡¯s Failure to Accommodate Left-Handedness

Author

Listed:
  • Benerdeta Malusi
  • Luke Odiemo
  • Kimamo Githui

Abstract

Although left-handers are approximately 10% of any indiscriminate general population, they are remarkably over-represented globally in positions of leadership, administration and governance. This has been explained as being due to their right-brain dominance which appears to have made it easier for left-handers to be more elastic in cognitive activities, allowing them to easily cope with challenges, perceive the bigger idea and be self-sustaining. Cross-sectional studies also show meaningfully enhanced left-hander incidences among top athletes exclusively in interactive sports and boxing occasioned by the surprise effect. Despite this, left-handers experience difficulties using everyday tools. Pre-school left-handers experience hitches primarily in writing left-to-right, expressing and responding to spatial discernments, which has contributed to them being the majority in remedial classes. Mismatches in the teaching/learning environment causes older children to fail to complete timed tasks which negatively affects their academic achievements. In sports, left-handers benefit more from long and intense training because of using training manuals meant for right-handers. The adjustments left-handers have to make in school and at the workplace in order to function comfortably usually causes hand, back, neck and shoulder pains which not only decreases their effectiveness but also compromises their physical and emotional wellbeing. An amalgamation of all these has made left-handedness appear as an obstruction to daily life generally and specifically in school. This review paper that sought to establish that the society¡¯s failure to accommodate left-handedness needs addressing, recommended creating societal left-handedness awareness programs, paradigm shifting in initial and continuing teacher training programs and classroom pedagogical approaches, establishment of inclusive teaching/learning resources, and the provision of evenhanded daily use tools by manufacturers at no extra cost.

Suggested Citation

  • Benerdeta Malusi & Luke Odiemo & Kimamo Githui, 2019. "Educational Inclusiveness: Addressing Society¡¯s Failure to Accommodate Left-Handedness," International Journal of Learning and Development, Macrothink Institute, vol. 9(4), pages 60-81, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:mth:ijld88:v:9:y:2019:i:4:p:60-81
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ijld/article/download/15577/12412
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ijld/article/view/15577
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua Goodman, 2014. "The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure, and Human Capital Accumulation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 193-212, Fall.
    2. Jadon R. Webb & Mary I. Schroeder & Christopher Chee & Deanna Dial & Rebecca Hana & Hussam Jefee & Jacob Mays & Patrick Molitor, 2013. "Left-Handedness Among a Community Sample of Psychiatric Outpatients Suffering From Mood and Psychotic Disorders," SAGE Open, , vol. 3(4), pages 21582440135, October.
    3. Florian Loffing & Norbert Hagemann & Bernd Strauss, 2012. "Left-Handedness in Professional and Amateur Tennis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-8, November.
    4. Paul Gregg & Katharina Janke & Carol Propper, 2008. "Handedness and Child Development," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 08/198, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marta Lachowska, 2013. "Employment Relations and Wages: What Can We Learn from Subjective Assessments?," Upjohn Working Papers 13-196, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    2. Paul Frijters & David Johnston & Manisha Shah & Michael Shields, 2013. "Intrahousehold Resource Allocation: Do Parents Reduce or Reinforce Child Ability Gaps?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(6), pages 2187-2208, December.
    3. Fabio Mariani & Marion Mercier & Luca Pensieroso, 2023. "Left-handedness and economic development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 79-123, March.
    4. Buser, Thomas & Cappelen, Alexander & Gneezy, Uri & Hoffman, Moshe & Tungodden, Bertil, 2021. "Competitiveness, gender and handedness," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    5. Cho, Seungyeon, 2021. "Is handedness exogenously determined? Counterevidence from South Korea," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    6. Guber, Raphael, 2019. "Making it right? Social norms, handwriting and human capital," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 44-57.
    7. Borra, Cristina & Iacovou, Maria & Sevilla, Almudena, 2023. "Adolescent development and the math gender gap," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    8. Joseph E. Aldy, 2019. "Birds of a feather: Estimating the value of statistical life from dual-earner families," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 187-205, June.
    9. Lukáš Lafférs & Bernhard Schmidpeter, 2021. "Early child development and parents' labor supply," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 190-208, March.
    10. Buser, Thomas & Cappelen, Alexander & Gneezy, Uri & Hoffman, Moshe & Tungodden, Bertil, 2020. "Competitiveness, gender and handedness: a large- sample intercultural study," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 2/2020, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    11. Marcello Sartarelli, 2016. "Handedness, Earnings, Ability and Personality. Evidence from the Lab," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-17, October.
    12. Marcello Sartarelli, 2016. "Handedness, Ability, Earnings and Risk. Evidence from the Lab," Working Papers. Serie AD 2016-04, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mth:ijld88:v:9:y:2019:i:4:p:60-81. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Technical Support Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ijld .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.