Abstract
In this paper, we draw on a recent ethnographic study in a rural primary school to illustrate the ways that vestiges of colonialism remain deeply imbricated in contemporary schooling in Ghana. In reference to the history of education, we use evidence from this study to argue that colonial constructions of the African child are reproduced within schooling. We highlight the significance of schooling for the production of learner subjectivities and point to the ways that the institution of schooling and its everyday life continue to echo and re-instantiate colonial constructions of the African child. Drawing on the voices and experiences of students and teachers we illustrate the ways that formal schooling continues to work to devalue indigenous knowledge, to regulate and discipline African children and produce their inferiorisation through their education. We specifically highlight the gender inflections in the institutional routines of schooling. Following a brief introduction to the historical context of education in Ghana, we outline the research study and then the theoretical position upon which our analysis is based. We develop the analysis along three major discursive themes starting with the formal institutional structures of the school, highlighting the ways its disciplinary boundaries structure age and gender relations. We then turn to the curriculum and pedagogic practices that shape student understandings of what constitutes legitimate knowledge and the processes of learning. In the final theme, we examine the language of instruction and the ways that this produces exclusions and vilifies indigenous languages and the cultures that are expressed through it. In the conclusion, we draw the key points together to reflect on the extent to which contemporary schooling in Ghana sustains the production of the African child framed in the colonial era. Finally, we suggest that the educational experience of students offers an important starting point for efforts in decolonizing the school and curriculum.
Highlights
The modern school system across Africa has its origins in colonialism
This paper draws critical attention to the way colonialism continues to cast a long shadow over the educational context in Ghana
Based on a recognition of the work of education in framing and producing student subjectivities, our analysis of ethnographic case study data illustrates the sustained influence of British colonialism on Ghanaian schools and children to date
Summary
The dominant features – educational institutions, curriculum knowledge practices and language of instruction in schools – all may be directly traced to the colonial institutional structure. In the national context of mass access to schooling, in this paper we draw on an ethnographic case study to explore the ways that the colonial canon remains instantiated in school and integral to the production of the African children in the contemporary post-colonial context of Ghana. We turn to an outline of our theoretical position in advance of an analysis presented in three sections These include the formal institutional structures of the school; curriculum and pedagogic practice and, lastly, the language of instruction. In each of these sections we trace the contours of coloniality and its sustained work in the framing the African child in schools. We conclude with a brief consideration of the implications for decolonizing the school and curriculum
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