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Recent Trends in School Social Control in Sub-Saharan Africa

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The Palgrave International Handbook of School Discipline, Surveillance, and Social Control

Abstract

This chapter draws from existing literature, analysis of school policy texts and codes of discipline, to examine the context and history of school social control in sub-Saharan Africa using some evidence from Ghana. It highlights how school hierarchies, institutional surveillance mechanisms, and the code of discipline produce school social control in the sub-Saharan Africa context. It discusses school hierarchical organization as a mechanism for control based on a case study in Ghana. The discussion examines how teachers’ own schooling and training experiences make them agents of school social control and how corporal punishment plays a key role concluding with the role that foreign languages play in controlling access to further education and future social and economic opportunities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Ghana, Mali Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

    Kwame Akyeampong

  2. University of Education, Winneba, Ghana

    Vincent Adzahlie-Mensah

Authors
  1. Kwame Akyeampong
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  2. Vincent Adzahlie-Mensah
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

    Jo Deakin

  2. Department of Sociology, City, University of London, London, United Kingdom

    Emmeline Taylor

  3. Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, Newark, USA

    Aaron Kupchik

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Akyeampong, K., Adzahlie-Mensah, V. (2018). Recent Trends in School Social Control in Sub-Saharan Africa. In: Deakin, J., Taylor, E., Kupchik, A. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of School Discipline, Surveillance, and Social Control. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71559-9_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71559-9_10

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