A Sociology of Education for Africa

Kenneth Blakemore, Brian Cooksey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315412719
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book, first published in 1980, provides a summary of the major research findings of previous studies of the sociology of education in Sub-Saharan Africa within an original and stimulating general framework whilst also devoting space to their own research findings. The major themes of the book are education and social inequality, the sociology of the school, the teacher and the curriculum, and education and development. The student of the sociology of development will find a stimulating discussion of education in relation to socio-cultural, economic and political change in contemporary Africa.

Part One

Education and Social Inequality in Africa

Introduction to Part One

In Part One we examine the relationship between education and social inequality in pre-colonial, colonial and contemporary Africa. The student should read this introduction carefully, as it explains certain key concepts which are used throughout the book. Short definitions of technical terms can be found in the glossary at the end of the book.

Social Inequality

What do we mean by social inequality? We should first distinguish between natural differences and social inequalities between people. Rousseau, a famous eighteenth-century thinker, summed up the distinction as follows:

I think of mankind as being characterised by two kinds of inequality, one which I call natural or physical because it stems from nature and consists of differences of age, health, physical strength and qualities of the spirit and the soul; the other which we might call moral or political inequality because it is based on convention and agreements made between people. The latter kind of inequality consists of various privileges which some enjoy at the expense of others; for example, being richer, more honoured, more powerful than others, and even getting others to obey your orders. (Rousseau, 1761, p. 6)

What we call social inequality is summed up by Rousseau in the last sentence of the quotation. Thus we do not mean natural differences between individuals when we talk of social inequality. The natural differences listed above (to which we may add sex and, up to a point, certain mental capacities) are primarily biological, and not social, characteristics. People often confuse natural differences and social inequalities or use the first to justify the second. For example, women often occupy an inferior position in society, not because they are naturally inferior to men, but because of social disadvantages attached to being born female. These disadvantages are reflected in school enrolment levels, as we will see in the following chapters.

Another example is that of intellectual differences between individuals. It is sometimes assumed that it is the most intelligent people who are the most successful in life. We can all think of examples of people from poor homes who, because of their above-average intelligence, were very successful in their studies and subsequently in their chosen careers. But it does not follow that the top people in society (the wealthy, the famous, the powerful) are necessarily the most intelligent and that the poorest people are necessarily the least intelligent. In practice intelligence as measured in school is determined by both natural and social factors, and it is difficult to separate these two. But overall social factors are much more important than natural intelligence in determining who goes to school and who occupies which positions in society. We will come back to the question of intelligence in Chapter 3.

There are many social differences between people which do not in themselves constitute social inequalities. For example, in most African countries there are differences between ethnic and regional groups as regards language, customs, family structure, religious practices and so on. These cultural differences should not be thought of in terms of inequality, although (as with natural differences) they are often confused with social inequalities or used to justify them. For example, members of one ethnic group or citizens of one country often think of themselves as being generally superior to all members of other ethnic groups or citizens of other countries. Outsiders are often thought of as uncivilised, backward, stupid, dirty, immoral or irreligious. Sometimes these attitudes towards outsiders reflect real inequalities – for example, inequalities in wealth and power, military and economic inequalities between nations – but cultural differences themselves should not be thought of as social inequalities.

Some sociologists distinguish between three closely related aspects of social inequality, namely class, status and power. Class inequalities are concerned with economic activities (how one earns a living) and with the ownership and control of property and wealth. Status inequalities are based on the social prestige accorded to individuals or groups, and power is the ability to impose one’s will on other people. Closely related to power is the concept of authority, which is the acceptance of the right to give orders and instructions. Thus social inequality can be defined as the unequal distribution of class, status and power within society. We may take a brief look at each of these concepts.

Class

Occupational roles and property ownership and control are the criteria by which we define social classes. Occupations differ widely as regards their general desirability, and studies in various countries have shown that there is broad agreement on the relative desirability of different kinds of work. The major determinant of desirability is the wage or salary which goes with the job. Other factors include: the nature of the work done (varied work is preferable to boring work); the opportunities for promotion; working conditions (dangerous, dirty and tiring work is undesirable, as are long hours and shift work). Some people would add that a job in which you give orders is preferable to one in which you take orders, but not everybody enjoys the responsibilities that go with power and authority. Another important factor is the general prestige attached to the job. Most, but not all, of this prestige reflects the above-mentioned factors of wage, working conditions and so on. In some societies certain occupations have high or low status for independent reasons. For example, becoming a priest or a nun has high prestige in deeply religious communities. Conversely, trading and moneylending are often looked down on as inferior occupations associated with outcasts or minority groups. In Muslim societies the malaam has relatively high status compared with his income, but primary schoolteaching is often thought of as a low status occupation, a point discussed in Part Two.

Sociologists often group together occupations with similar overall levels of desirability in order to establish a hierarchy of classes. The number and name given to these varies with the classification. Some speak of upper, middle and lower classes; others of working, lower middle, upper middle and upper classes; others of blue- and white-collar classes (that is, manual and non-manual workers); yet others distinguish between skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled in the blue-collar class. An added complication is that people do not always consider themselves members of the class in which sociologists have put them, that is, the objective definition of class does not necessarily coincide with the subjective definition. Awareness of belonging to one or other class is termed class-consciousness.

Classes are unequal to the extent that rewards tend to be cumulative, in other words, the occupations with the highest salaries are usually those with the best working conditions, the best chances of promotion or the greatest opportunity for personal initiative. If this were not the case there would probably be less competition between people for available jobs than there is, because the advantages attached to a given job would be cancelled out by the disadvantages.

In Africa the gap between the most and the least desirable occupations is often extreme. For example, a top civil servant may earn twenty to thirty times as much as his office cleaner, and a peasant farmer may earn in a year less than a member of parliament earns in a week. These inequalities tend to intensify competition for jobs and make educational success a matter of vital importance. One of our main concerns in this book is with the role of education in permitting or preventing access to jobs at different levels.

The ownership or non-ownership of property is a very important aspect of economic inequality. By property we mean more than just personal belongings like clothes, radios and household goods. Property includes land, buildings of all kinds, the machinery and factories used to produce wealth and the money and titles (stocks and shares) which represent, or can be turned into, wealth. The economies of the non-communist developed countries have grown through the private accumulation of wealth and property: this is the capital in the word ‘capitalism’. It is a feature of these economies that property as defined above is extremely unevenly distributed, that is, a small minority of the population owns the greater part of the wealth. When we talk of class inequalities in this sense, therefore, we are not thinking of occupations with differential rewards but of the ownership and non-ownership of capital. In Africa, many more people own or have access to land than in the capitalist countries of the West, but the ownership of other kinds of property is extremely unequal, even though there is much less of it than in the West. Those with high incomes from their occupation usually acquire property which in turn produces further income.

Education can be seen as a form of property. The skills and qualifications obtained through formal education can be sold on the job market, and the most highly qualified usually get the best jobs. Parents with high incomes from their occupation or property generally invest substantial amounts in the education of their children so as to increase their chances of educational and occupational success. This is one way in which class inequalities tend to be reproduced through time. The nature of the African class structure and the relationship between class and educational achievement are major themes of Chapters 1, 2 and 3.

Status

It is easy to confuse class and status. Status refers to the prestige or ‘social honour’ attached to any social position. It happens in modern society that the class position of an individual is by far the most important of all the social positions he or she occupies as regards his or her overall status. Generally it is the wealthy, the powerful and those at the top of the occupational ladder who have the highest status, but within these groups there may be considerable differences of status. For example, a big trader may be much wealthier than a top class lawyer or surgeon, but he may well enjoy much less status than either of the latter. Inherited wealth may carry more (or less) status than wealth acquired through personal initiative. As already pointed out, certain occupations have high or low status independent of the income, working conditions and so on attached to them. Civil servants may be held in high esteem in one society, in low esteem in another. The same is true for soldiers, teachers, politicians, priests, prostitutes, beggars or landlords.

There is often disagreement on the status attributed to any particular position. This is related to the growth of what are called subcultures. Any social group may develop its own set of values and behaviour on the basis of common interests or activities. Sociologists have found that such groups as schoolchildren and students, those sharing working and living conditions, prisoners and criminals, sailors and soldiers, musicians and entertainers, sportsmen and so on develop shared definitions of good and bad attitudes, moral values and behaviour, which define the group and distinguish it from other groups or from the larger society. In Chapter 3 and Part Two we will come back to the question of subcultures and their importance in relation to education. For the moment we may note that the status attributed to a particular social position may vary with the social position of the person who is attributing the status. The rich and the powerful may have high status among those immediately below them in society, but little or no status in the eyes of the very poor. Similarly, the job of motor mechanic will carry more prestige for a peasant’s son than for the son of a secondary schoolteacher.

As well as occupational roles, people play ritual, religious, political, cultural, recreational and many other types of role, any of which may be a source of positive or negative status. Group membership not directly related to occupational/economic roles is called ‘status group’ as opposed to class membership. People from different classes may belong to a given status group, for example an urban tribal association may attract membership from all urban classes.

Status groups are defined in terms of life-style and consumption patterns (what members do with their spare time and income) rather than in terms of productive activities. Often those with high class positions also have high positions in the status groups to which they belong. For example, a rich trader may be a leading member of his tribal association, he may take a traditional title which bestows status, and he may use both his class position and status to obtain political office at the local or national level. Conversely, a person with a relatively low status occupation may be a leading member of his local church, ethnic association, trade union or local government. Priests, literates, chiefs, the elderly, men, intellectuals, malaams, court officials and others, may enjoy status (at least locally) which is disproportionate to their income or power. We should be careful, however, not to forget that there is generally quite a close correlation between economic position and social status.

Educational achievement is a source of status, both in occupational and in general terms. Occupational status is partially a function of the amount of education associated with different occupational levels. As well as giving access to specialist knowledge and increasing the individual’s grasp of the world around him, educational achievement also confers status and improves life chances. In Africa, the most educated people often think of themselves (and are thought of by the less educated) as being the most fit to play leadership roles and to take the initiative in the struggle for social and economic development. The high status of the most educated increases their legitimacy in the eyes of the less educated in playing leadership roles.

Power and Authority

The most extreme form of power is the use, or the threat, of physical violence. Less extreme (and more common) is power based on the threat of sanctions, as when an employer threatens to dismiss an employee. When power becomes institutionalised in roles it is transformed into authority; so that we may define authority as the exercise of legitimate power. Authority is a common feature of all organisations with a distinct hierarchy of command and a more or less well-defined sphere in which orders can be given in the expectation that they will be carried out. Such organisations are commonly called bureaucracies and these have come to play an increasingly important part in modern societies, for good or bad. To exercise authority in a bureaucracy one is supposed to be competent to perform the tasks associated with a given position. Competence is a function of training and experience, and training is more and more a question of formal education. Thus as bureaucracies grow so formal education becomes increasingly important in obtaining p...