Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools: Youth, Nationalism and the Transformation of Knowledge

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 17 No. 4 (2007) ISSN: 1546-2250 Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools: Youth, Nationalism and the Transformation of Knowledge Coe, Cati (2005). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press; 241 pages. $20. ISBN 0226111318. Cati Coe’s book’s use of ethnography and history guides readers to understand the dynamics of cultural politics inGhana as the state attempts to create a national culture through its schools. Coe focuses on the debate over tradition, modernity and nationalism in Ghana. By including the influences of the church and the local chiefs, she captures the complexity of these influences and the legacy of colonialism. Her study is based on specific primary and secondary schools in the Akuapem region of Ghana. While she may find similarities elsewhere, especially in West Africa, titling the book Dilemmas of Culture in AfricanSchools assumes much broader generalizations. The reference to African rather than Ghanaian schools may be a stretch, especially on a continent as vast and culturally diverse as Africa. Coe divides her book into two parts. The first section is titled “How Culture Became the Property of the State.” The section is a historical documentation of the efforts of theBasel missionaries to convert locals to Christianity. Her narration of the interactions between the Basel missionaries and the local Akuapem people begins in the late 19th to the early 20th century. The missionaries were unique because they believed in what Coe calls romantic nationalism, which embraced folk traditions and languages. However, contradictions abounded because even though the missionaries in Akuapem embraced some traditions and encouraged use of local language, the missionaries required their converts to Christianity to live in separate quarters, causing families to be torn apart. The converts rarely entered the Chief’s palace and felt that they could no longer follow or obey the local African regulations. Coe captures the frustrations of the missionaries, the locals and 428 their chiefs, as conflicts arose between traditional culture, the Church and the modern schools. This second part of Coe’s book is a compliment to Chinua Achebe’s book Things Fall Apart (1958), which addresses British colonization and the conversion to Christianity of the Igbo people of Nigeria. Achebe captures the destruction of the intricate traditional ways of life in Africa by the administrative systems that the British imposed on the cultures of Africa in the name of “civilizing the natives.” In reality, the effect of the colonial systems was cruel and inhumane practices that subjugated large native populations in the British colonies. Western missionaries such as the Basel missionaries set out to move native peoples away from the superstitious practices that they perceived as primitive and convert them to Christianity. Coe finds that in later years, the educated African Christian elites began to question the Church’s dismissal of the local traditions. They wondered why it was not possible to merge the important traditional practices with the modern culture. Consequently, the state, led by the first president of post-colonial, independent Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkurumah, found it necessary to promote a single Ghanaian culture. He set out to take control of schools, particularly removing them from the influence of the churches. In order to avoid divisions along tribal lines, the state promoted nationalism through the schools. Some of these state efforts found success because young people directly participated in them and they gained pride in their culture and country. “How Culture Is Reclaimed by Its Citizens” is the title of the second part of Coe’s book. She discusses the tensions between the state, local chiefs, their people, and the Church, and what culture means to the different groups. In this section, culture is discussed in the context of nationalism, religion, and as a way of life. The complexity and difficulties of promotion of culture by the state in schools is evidence as Coe states that “although the state sponsors cultural programming in schools, the teaching and performance of culture in schools end up producing more contradictory messages…” (92). The competition between the church and state forces schools to merge messages about culture in order to express national development 429 values with Christian values. The paradoxes include the attempt to pick...