Nation-Building in Kenyan Secondary School Textbooks

Abstract

This article examines how issues of national, Pan-African and tribal identities are handled in Kenyan upper secondary school textbooks for History and Government. Kenya is a multi-ethnic country without a common pre-colonial history. As a result, the historical record does not easily provide a common narrative with which to unify the nation. To compensate for the absence of a national narrative textbooks propagate and advance particular themes and national ideologies such as “African socialism”, “Harambee” and “Nyayoism.” Although unable to present a national narrative as a unifying factor, at the Pan-African level Kenyan textbooks stress the common African experience of European colonialism. Significantly, African nationalism is seen as unifying and liberating, whereas European nationalism is described as aggressive and oppressive. However, while the Kenyan textbooks describe the nation as in need of being constructed the tribes are taken for granted, despite research indicating that tribal identities themselves are often recent constructions. As a consequence, although national unity is stated as the primary goal of Kenyan History and Government education, school textbooks ironically do more to strengthen tribal identity than national identity.