Introduction

Micro Level Household Access to Education

Gyankroma, a native of Kyebi, Ghana, aged 87, retired as an Associate Professor from a Ghanaian university. She comes from a family of 13 siblings, including two stepmothers. She is the lone daughter among three brothers born to the same mother. Under her father’s guidance, she was taught to prioritize household chores despite the availability of nearby schools that accepted female students. Her father granted her mother and his other wives the choice to select one child each for education. Despite being her mother’s first choice, her father opposed the decision. Preferentially, her younger brother was enrolled in school. Following her maternal uncle’s intervention in support of her father, both brothers were enrolled in school. In matrilineal societies, boys are traditionally expected to economically support their sister’s children as adults. Although not obligatory, families often prioritize investing resources in the education and upbringing of boys, hoping they will fulfill this role. During her late grandmother’s funeral, another maternal uncle intervened prompting her enrollment in school at age eight, two years later than the typical entry age for primary education. Her father withdrew her from school citing financial constraints, whilst her brothers continued their education without interruption. It was customary to see girls discontinue their education due to familial pressure from fathers, maternal uncles, or maternal grandfathers. Despite this common occurrence, her return to school was facilitated by her mother’s maternal cousin, who was impressed by her reading skills. She became the first among her siblings to achieve tertiary education. Her experience underscores the complexities girls face in pursuing education contrary to prevailing notions that girls’ access to schooling is straightforward. Girls faced initial exclusion and potential dropout, often imposed by fathers, maternal uncles, or maternal granduncles [Author’s field-notes, 04/ 05/ 2015].

Gyankroma’s narrative underscores the household-level gatekeeping systems that females navigate in accessing education and the gendered pathway to access. Her access narrative defies simplistic explanations based solely on macro and meso-level structural education concerns and interventions, indicating the inadequacy of uni-causal approaches in conceptualizing educational access. Macro-level education concerns encompass normative and institutional policies defining children’s access to schooling, including fee-free policies, cost-sharing policies, and educational reforms (Adu-Gyamfi et al. 2016; Akyeampong 2009; Anamuah-Mensah et al. 2002; Aziabah 2017; Donge 2003; Ministry of Education 1999; Johnstone 2003; Kiprop et al. 2015; Lewin 2008; McWilliam and Kwamena-Poh 1975; Nurudeen et al. 2018). Meso-level policies encompass supply-side measures, including improving education infrastructure, providing teacher incentives, and implementing school-level interventions such as gender-segregated toilets (Birdthistle et al. 2011; Freeman et al. 2012; Oster and Thornton 2011).

Research on macro and meso-level interventions and their impact on education access often employs large-scale surveys and standard statistical analyses (Carr-Hill 2012; Connelly and Zheng 2003; Meekers and Ahmed 1999; Shapiro and Tambashe 2001; Wils 2004). Although essential for gauging access indicators such as enrollment rate, completion rate, gender parity index, retention rate, and progression rates, it often lacks the nuanced micro-level negotiations within family dynamics inherent in children’s education access.

In this paper, I take the argument from the conservative traditional structural approach which focuses on macro- and meso-level education access concerns, to micro-level analyses of access. I employ the term ‘micro-level’ to explain how individual socio-economic backgrounds, family structures, gender dynamics, and household processes shape children’s access to education.

The growing literature on micro-level education access examines issues such as family income, decision-making dynamics, sibling configuration, and gendered division of labor, and their implications for educational access (Birdsall et al. 2005; Boyle et al. 2002; Bruneforth 2006; Cardoso and Verner 2007; Dachi and Garrett 2003; Hunter and May 2003; Porteus et al. 2000; Steelman et al. 2000; Vavrus 2002).

Family income and resource dilution are crucial factors affecting education access, considering both direct and indirect costs. Additionally, gender’s significance in education exclusion underscores cultural biases and pro-son attitudes and its implications for retention and school completion (Adomako-Ampofo 2001; Pryor and Ampiah 2003; Darkwah 2010; Dei 2005). Furthermore, micro-level family research emphasizes the influence of various family members, including mothers, fathers, and others, on children’s education access (Lloyd and Blanc 1996). The World Bank (2008) also stresses the indispensable role of extended family relations in enabling education access for many children in Africa.

Whilst this set of literature is profoundly revealing in explaining how individual level and household factors affect education access and outcomes for children, it provides limited explanation beyond economic concerns. Beyond family income and resource dilution, other micro-level factors for example, social relationships, and kinship which looms large and determine gendered access and non-access is rarely examined. Important perspectives such as negotiation of relationships, relationship construction, decision-making, and gatekeeping strategies that family members employ to enable and or hinder education access for children especially girls are rarely broached.

In this paper, I investigate how gatekeeping strategies influenced the creation of gendered pathways to education for the inaugural cohorts of educated women in Ghana. This is based on qualitative inquiry of women born between 1917 and 1957 within traditional matrilineal society. Exploring this demography is crucial to address underexamined aspects of historical education dynamics particularly unpacking the gatekeeping strategies and the resultant gendered education access pathways for this understudied group.

The paper also considers the unequal power dynamics of cultural resources—such as traditional gender roles of fathers, maternal uncles, mothers, and daughters—and their influence on gatekeeping activities. It contributes to the conceptual understanding of gatekeeping as an interpretive framework. Moreover, by employing qualitative methods, deeper and nuanced insights into education processes beyond the conventional statistical analyses are provided.

The paper proceeds as follows. It begins with an overview of global education access concerns, followed by a specific focus on education access issues in Ghana, spanning colonial, pre- and post-independence periods. Subsequent sections examine the context of matrilineal societies, contextualizing the schooling period of the women under study in the study area, Kyebi Ghana. The research methods are outlined, followed by an exploration of gatekeeping within two family categories: the royal family and non-royal families.

Education access as a global concern

Education access is deemed a human rights concern (Christie 2010; UNESCO 2011, 2014). The significance of education as a developmental priority is highlighted by various global initiatives including the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Education for All (EFA), and more recently, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) (Monkman and Hoffman 2013; Unterhalter 2012). While many countries have ratified these global commitments, the transition from promises to actions poses challenges due to scarcity of resources, which must be allocated across multiple sectors including the economy, health, trade, public services, labor, employment, and salaries. Countries in a bid to actualize the goals have adopted one intervention or the other such as fee-free, and cost-sharing policies. The constitutional provisions of numerous countries mandate free and compulsory education at the primary level, significantly improving access to education for a large segment of the population (UNESCO 2016; World Bank 2005).

Despite global efforts to enhance education accessibility, the gender parity index (GPI) whilst improved remains unrealized in primary education in approximately 33% of countries, lower secondary education in about 54% of countries, and upper secondary education in about 77% of countries (UNESCO 2016). Secondary education continues to be inaccessible to several children across the globe (Human Right Watch 2018).

Notwithstanding progress in basic education, global disparities persist in achieving equitable education across various benchmarks such as gender, socio-economic status, and location (UNESCO 2016; UNESCO-UIS 2018). The extent of progress was notably minimal during the period 1917–1957, marked by restricted education access, particularly for women, and widespread gender disparity across the globe, including many countries in the Global South.

Education access in Ghana: pre-independence, independence, and post-independence contexts

Exploring the historical accounts of education in Ghana offers valuable context for understanding the schooling experiences of the first generation of educated women. Educational practices in Ghana have historical origins predating the 1500s, primarily focused on transmitting values and skills from parents to children in an informal and unstructured manner (Adu-Gyamfi et al. 2016; Antwi 1992). When formal education was introduced by the colonial administration, the goal was to produce literate men (Graham 1971). Some scholas commend the British administration for its contributions to education development in Ghana, whilst others argue that pre-independence policies offered limited advantages to the nation (Boahen 2000; Djamila and Djafri 2011; Williams 1964).

Other historical accounts critique these policies for fostering geographical, gender, and economic disparities (Bening 1990; Brukum 1998). Education policies in these times prioritized southern over northern Ghana, emphasizing the creation of a labor pool for the mining and agriculture sectors in that region, to the detriment of the northern areas (Bening 1990; Brukum 1998, p. 131; Darkwah 2010).

Pre-independence education policy also privileged boys over girls, emphasizing their training for roles as educated clerks, teachers, catechists, and professionals, while girls were given secondary attention (Graham 1971, p. 72). When girls were allowed to go to school, the goal was to train them to become appendages to their educated husbands rather than independent and empowered women (Graham 1971, p. 133). Gender biases in education were structural at the institutional level. Darkwah (2010), observed that families often restricted women’s access to formal education, believing that any benefits gained would primarily accrue to their future husbands rather than their natal families.

Ghana’s education underwent restructuring after independence to bridge the equity and skill gap in access to education. The changes included shorter school durations, diversifying curricula, and introducing new content. Key reforms, such as the FCUBE initiative mandating free and compulsory basic education, and financing models like cost-sharing, have been implemented (Akyeampong 2009; Asare-Bediako 2014; Johnstone 2003; Koramoah 2016). In recent times, the completely free secondary education system which was implemented in 2017 is aimed at ensuring equitable education at the upper secondary school levels (Amissah 2019; Chanimbe and Prah 2020; Matey 2020).

The geographical, regional, and gender discriminatory undertones of the pre-independence education systems meant that the population of the geographical northern regions were the least educated in Ghana. Gender disparities in access meant that, before 1957, significantly higher number of men predominated in education and secured formal sector positions with better conditions of service and financial security compared to women when the first generation of educated women entered school (Darkwah 2010).

Education access in the Kyebi-specific context

Kyebi serves as a focal point for providing insights into the meso-context shaping the education of the first generation educated women (FGEW). Delving into education in Kyebi, Ghana, also necessitates the recognition of the pivotal role of Nana Sir Ofori-Atta I, King of the royal Akyem Kingdom in 1912. His political leadership sets a productive precedent and establishes benchmarks for examining education access in the study context, notably improving education, healthcare provision, and infrastructure (Frempong 1945). According to Bourret, Ofori Atta I’s approach to politics was a mix of educational modernism and aristocratic nepotism (1960, p. 161). His leadership oversaw the establishment of Kyebi Primary School, Middle Schools, and Abuakwa State College. In total, 32 primary schools were built in the Royal Akyem Kingdom in 1942 (Kwakye 2007).

Establishing a scholarship initiative, he facilitated access to secondary and overseas university education for his constituents. Notably, prior to 1948, there were no universities in Ghana or the Gold Coast, however, a select few from his polity were able to pursue higher education at institutions such as Glasgow, Cambridge, London, Oxford, and Edinburgh (Brizuela-Garcia 2007). He improved access to upper secondary education for girls by instituting a scholarship scheme that enabled girls to attend school cost-free (Kwakye 2007). It is unsurprising, therefore, that several people from the Royal Akyem Kingdom became first in vital fields of national endeavors- the first Ghanaian female professional librarian Grace Abena Amoakoa Ofori Atta, the first Ghanaian director of public prosecution, Kwasi Duah Sakyi, the first Ghanaian anesthetist Prof. Kofi Amoah Oduro, the first Ghanaian to obtain a doctorate degree from a British University, Dr J. B. Danquah, the first Ghanaian female medical practitioner Susan Ofori Atta (Kwakye 2007).

Through the effort of the then Chief Nana Sir Ofori Atta I, structural education concerns (e.g., infrastructure), and meso-level interventions (e.g., scholarships) were settled. His edict accounts for the disproportionate number of highly educated individuals from his jurisdiction during his reign. Despite this favourable structural education environment, education access for girls at the micro-household levels was not always guaranteed. Indeed, girls had to negotiate access with gatekeepers. I refer to those who successfully negotiated access and were the first in their families to receive education up to the tertiary level as First Generation Educated Women (FGEW).

The First Generation Educated Women (FGEW)

Scholarly literature on early educated women (FGEW) in Ghana is sparse. In my literature search, I found only two studies dedicated to exploring their lives and experiences. First, Behrends (2002) focuses on Dagara women. The second, Wyllie (1966) explores the socio-economic characteristics of parents and whether there is a trend towards closure in terms of recruitment (Weis 1981).

Early educated women in Ghana are seldom commemorated, but when they are, it is through monuments, such as the naming of an undergraduate hall at the University of Ghana after Ms. Elizabeth Frances Baaba Sey, the institution’s inaugural female graduate (Undergraduate and Post Graduate Prospectus 2014). This paper takes a closer look at this generation and investigates how gatekeeping strategies established gendered pathways to education access for them. It emphasizes the roles of gatekeepers, gendered power dynamics, and the negotiation of gatekeeping in shaping access to education for the FGEW in Ghana.

Explaining matrilineal families

Social organization in Ghana revolves around extended family units structured under two predominant descent systems: matrilineal and patrilineal. In matrilineal systems new members are conscripted through the female line, while political leadership and properties are transferred along the maternal lineage. In contrast, patrilineal systems trace lineage and inheritance through the paternal line (Benefo et al. 1994; Manuh 1997; Murdock 1967; Nukunya 2003).

Matrilineal Akans prioritize lineage loyalty, affecting marriage dynamics (Asante-Darko and Van der Geest 1983). These lineal ties also affect education access and outcomes. The education of the FGEW occurred within matrilineal family structures, where enduring kinship ties coexisted with limited evolving western norms and changing political economies (see e.g., Amoateng and Heaton 1989; Caldwell 1982; Kaufmann and Meekers 1998; Manuh 1997; Mikell 1992; Mikell 1997; Takyi 2001; Schneider 1964; Schneider 1981). Strong kinship ties could serve as an exclusionary factor in education access as the welfare of the whole family is considered above the educational needs of any individual member.

Additionally, in matrilineal settings, strong kinship ties which confer differential benefits, rights, and obligations outside the marital unit and lineage ties impacted decision-making (Fortes 1953; Lockwood 1995; Takyi 2001; Takyi and Dodoo 2005). In this context, mothers’ brothers have significant say on issues of their sisters’ children (Takyi and Dodoo 2005). Consequently, individual’s allegiance to the lineage often overrules other allegiance to husbands for the female members, and wives for the male members. The essence of exploring matrilineal families is to show that the nature of the matrilineal family system can either undermine or enable education access for girls.

Conceptual framework (theory of gatekeeping)

To enable the exploration of the gatekeeping strategies that circumscribed the access to education for these group of women, I frame the analyses with the theory of gatekeeping. Gatekeeping theory was introduced by Kurt Lewin in his bid to understand human behavior (1947). Gatekeeping theory is often employed in communication studies to make sense of how news media filter, select and shape messages (Shoemaker and Vos 2009). In communication, gatekeepers are used to refer to the actors in control of how far-reaching news items could go. They have power to determine which item is newsworthy and whether it is allowed to, or not to pass through their channels. In recent times, online news channels and their activities have enabled the use of the term network of interdependent gatekeepers (Goode 2009). This explains how online platforms distribute the news even without newsgathering apparatus of their own. Bruns (2005) also introduced the term gate-watching to conceptualize other participants in news circulation process who do not play the traditional role of determining which news makes it on to a channel.

Gatekeeping is adopted and adapted as the conceptual framework for this paper, elucidating the actors who controlled education access and influenced the schooling experiences of girls. It is utilized as an interpretive tool to understand how access was enabled or obstructed for the First Generation of Educated Women (FGEW) in Ghana, akin to its usage by Ngom et al. (2003) in examining women’s health-seeking behaviors in the Northern Region.

In this analysis, gatekeeping refers to the activities of family members like fathers and maternal uncles who control or regulate school access. Drawing from Bruns (2005), gate-watching is also utilized to encompass those involved in the gatekeeping process but not as gatekeepers themselves. This includes individuals who support or enforce the decisions made by gatekeepers regarding access. Gate-watching entails monitoring existing gates to ensure compliance with or adherence to access determinations.

Method

The analysis presented in this paper originated from a master’s thesis project that examined the micro-politics of girls’ education for the first generation of educated women in Ghana. The issues explored in the bigger project span decision-making structures within their households and the bigger extended matrilineal families, gatekeeping, resource dilution, negotiating kinship bonds with certain kin members, the weakening of bonds with others, and subtle reciprocity of relationships that undergirded whether a girl would be supported to go to school or not. The presentation in this paper focuses exclusively on gatekeeping practices, gatekeeping structures and activities around access to education for the FGEW. The study area Kyebi was selected because it is a typical matrilineal society and a town that is also known to have hosted some of the first set of elites (both females and males) in Ghana.

I employed informal conversational interviews and exploratory autobiographical narratives as instruments of data generation. This method emphasized women’s voices, enabling a nuanced exploration of the gatekeeping processes shaping their access to education (Hale 1998; Katz 1996; Lawson 2000). I also conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with living family members mentioned in the education access narratives of the FGEW, specifically exploring their roles as decision-makers or allies, with their consent for the bigger project.

The following questions guided the data collection: How did gatekeeping strategies create gendered pathway to education access? What education access gatekeeping systems existed at the household levels? The interviews were conducted among two different kinds of families: the royal family, and other non-royal families. Kyebi has a notable history marked by a division between Christian converts who mainly settled in the suburb of Salem, and adherents of traditional beliefs, mostly royals who predominantly inhabited Kyebi town proper. The royal family perceived Christianity as an outsider religion (Kani 1975). The point in making this distinction is to appreciate how the data analysis would be done across two types of families, the royal families, and non-royal families whose descendants lived in the Salem even though this distinction is no longer the case in present day Kyebi.

Thirty research participants were interviewed, with fifteen identified as First Generation Educated Women (FGEW) and the remaining fifteen comprising relatives of the FGEW. I rely predominantly on the access experiences of 15 women (FGEW) to make the case of gatekeeping in this paper.

The 15 women were from ages 65 to 104 years as at the time of the interviews. To qualify for the interview, the participants had to satisfy certain criteria:

  • Women who were the first (in the nuclear, and or extended family) to have received tertiary education in their families.

  • They should come from Kyebi (Indigenes). The Table 1 shows the profile of the FGEW.

The study attended to the 15 FGEW, aged between 65 and 104 during the interviews, whose access experiences serve as the primary focus to understand gatekeeping dynamics.

The Table 1 shows the profile of the FGEW.

Table 1 Demographic characteristics of first generation educated women in Ghana, Kyebi (Akuffo, 2023b, p.1013)
Full size table

The interviews lasted between 50 and 130 min, with variations influenced by interviewees’ reasoning ability. The interviewees, born between 1917 and 1957, and aged between 64 and 104, encountered a few challenges associated with aging, including memory loss. To mitigate this, measures were taken such as incorporating intermittent breaks during interviews to aid participants in recollecting their thoughts.

Philosophical world view and positioning

In this study, I adopted an advocacy or transformative worldview, which advocates for a political agenda in research. The agenda was to investigate gatekeeping dynamics through the lens of women, traditionally perceived as holding less power within family hierarchies and structures (Hesse-Biber and Leavy 2007).

Also, my personal background as an educated woman and a long-term resident of the matrilineal society under study, I approached this study with a nuanced understanding of the dynamics at play. This shaped the research agenda and the research processes in this study. According to (Gelsthorpe and Morris 1990, p. 88), theorizing begins with a researcher’s own experiences. I admit that my personal qualities and experiences, my worldviews, and my insider researcher’s status influenced the outcome and the knowledge obtained and accounts for the biases I brought onto the research. Primarily, this research seeks to validate the subjective experiences of the FGEW, particularly through the exploration of gatekeeping mechanisms in education access from the standpoint of women (Harding 1993). Stating my positionality in relation to the research and deconstructing how my worldview and my similar position re-my education and ethnic identity intersect with those of the participants is one way I sought to ensure trustworthiness (Lietz et al. 2006, p. 447).

To mitigate biases related to my positionality and social status, I prioritize the participants’ interpretations of their experiences (Lietz et al. 2006 pp. 443–444). I threaded the voices and narratives of the participants throughout the findings and the analyses of the data as the participants requested. I presented a summary of the findings to participants to check the interpretations of the data collected from them. Once they were happy with the meanings and interpretations, a final draft was written grounded in the theoretical position adopted for the study.

The analysis of data followed the thematic network approach. Initial codes were generated from the interview transcripts and auto-biographical narratives. I generated an index of ideas to match where the codes come from (Braun and Clarke 2006, p. 20). Different types of indexing were generated beginning with a set number of themes and moving to more freeform overtime. Generating different types of indexing was important because information that’s relevant to a particular question isn’t always answered in that specific question. The back-and-forth process of grouping, regrouping and relinking data to themes were done. The themes were reviewed for patterns. Themes that formed coherent patterns were combined, refined, and renamed. Themes were further mapped with specific research questions to avoid overlap. A final thematic account of the issue was reported in the findings.

Ethical implications

This research had ethical implications just like other research involving interviewing human participants. I got ethical clearance from the Ethics Committee for the Humanities (ECH) Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana before commencing the research. I assumed that clearly articulating the study’s objectives, implementing measures to ensure anonymity and confidentiality, and communicating plans for disseminating the research output would elicit informed consent.

Despite substantial participant support and cooperation, I encountered challenges in maintaining confidentiality. Confidentiality concerns arose as some expressed a preference for their personal data to be included in the research output. Researchers possess the prerogative to waive confidentiality, nevertheless I carefully weighed their request against other considerations (Beauchamp and Childress 2009). For example, an analysis of participant data indicated that their education access often involved intricate family negotiations, internal disputes, and conflicts. Presenting this information without anonymization posed ethical considerations. Thus, rather than shifting such confidentiality burden to the participants, I refrained from transferring the responsibility of confidentiality decisions to the participants (Anabo et al. 2019; Kaiser 2009; Ryen 2004). I negotiated with participants to pseudonymize their names while retaining the original name of the town. The decision to retain the original name of the town was supported and approved by the institutional ethical review board overseeing the study. A reflection of the ethical quagmire emanating from this study has been published elsewhere (see, Akuffo 2023a).

Findings and discussions

The royal family: to go or not to go to school

In exploring the educational traditions, of the inaugural cohorts of educated women (FGEW), it became evident that gatekeepers determined access, often excluding certain individuals, particularly females. Notably, decisions and exclusions, even within royal families, contradicted economic rationality.

On the royal family, the Ofori Atta I, contradiction

Ofori Atta I significantly contributed to addressing macro-level education access concerns, including infrastructure development. Missionary activities and traditional leadership also supported formal education. Consequently, it would be reasonable to expect increased educational participation among women in this region.

Female members of the royal family were widely believed to have had privileged education access under the leadership of Nana Sir Ofori Atta I. This unhindered access to education, suggesting a favorable educational environment within the royal hierarchy was possible because the King, Nana Sir Ofori Atta I resolved to enhance education opportunities for his subjects with the substantial resources at his disposal. Puzzlingly, however, acquiring education for the FGEW in this family was a real mission. Nana narrates this contradiction:

There is this perception that once a person belonged to the royal family that ascends the traditional stool, it was a done deal that he or she would have had the benefit of formal education. But that assertion is not wholly true […]. Let us document those highly educated people close to the stool. Most of the highly educated ones are the King’s children. Traditionally, this is a matrilineal society, where women and men are connected to the maternal clan through their mother and so the ‘Wͻfaase’ (the king’s sisters’ sons) should count more because they become the crown princes, but the King sent his children rather to school. Well, apparently for him, his children were his children. Even among the Kings children you are only likely to hear the names of the men: he had sons who became prominent in various fields of endeavors. His sons occupied the positions such as Directors of mining companies, Secretary General Ghana Peace Council, Economist, and a deputy Minister of Finance, a Minister of Foreign Affairs, Presidential Candidate of a political party, Governor of Bank of Ghana, and many more. You hardly hear about the women. May be apart from two of his daughters who rose to become (the first Superintendent of Ghana Post and Telecommunications, and another who became the first Ghanaian female medical practitioner), which other females in that generation do you hear about? But the King it is rumored had more than 90 children and a lot of wives and if I am permitted to say some ‘side women’. A female got to go to school depending on how enlightened her mother was, mothers needed to push the boundaries of access and negotiate with their brothers, uncles, and husbands before their daughters could access formal education in a way that they did not need to do for their sons. Apart from the King’s children, mostly sons, those women who were direct descendants and whose sons and daughters could occupy the stool one day were denied access.

The quote underscores that even within the royal family, there were dynamics of micro-level politicking concerning access to education. Access to education depended on factors, encompassing gender, familial relations, maternal or mothers’ perspectives of educational significance, and gatekeeping dynamics.

This finding supports existing literature indicating that pro-son attitudes can serve as exclusionary factors in shaping gendered education access (Adomako-Ampofo 2001; Pryor and Ampiah 2003; Darkwah 2010; Dei 2005). The King, it seems, did not practice what he preached to the latter as he privileged his sons as compared to daughters. Whilst he considered merit and blood consistent with Bourret (1960, p. 161) assertion, the extract above reveals that he also gave as much importance to gender as he did blood.

Gatekeepers within the family employed cultural norms to restrict girls’ educational access. Traditional cultural norms primarily tasked women of the royal family with child rearing and caregiving, emphasizing their pivotal role in perpetuating the matrilineage through childbirth. Hence, education opportunities were restricted to women capable of bearing heirs beyond the king’s lineage.

The idea that sons have an obligation to take care of their sisters’ children was deeply entrenched. Notwithstanding, the king’s support for education was selective, favoring his own sons while leaving many of his sisters’ sons largely uneducated. Paradoxically, despite his advocacy for education, a significant portion of his daughters remained uneducated.

In an excerpt from an informal conversational interview with Nana, one of the first generation educated women, it became apparent that the assumption that all individuals related to Ofori Atta I had privileged access to formal education was unfounded. Female members of the royal household accessed education depending on their mothers’ awareness of its importance and their adeptness in negotiating gatekeeping dynamics with gatekeepers who guard discrete gates and those who control access.

The royal family and zigzag to carry the family name

The pursuit of education among the first generation educated women in the royal family was hindered by the imperative to uphold the family name. Gatekeepers restricted women’s education through cultural norms and practices associated with the stool. Girls’ access to education was constrained by the dominant expectation of motherhood, deeply rooted within traditional chieftaincy structures. This expectation mandated that women fulfill their roles within the matrilineal lineage, often at the expense of educational opportunities, if it conflicted with these responsibilities. In this context, the politics of girls’ education were marked by pronounced polarization. Dissent was interpreted as disloyalty to the entire lineage, reflecting the notion that any opposition was seen as being subversive against the collective. Donkorno, aged 87, a mother of seven, a royal, and the sole daughter and direct descendant of her grandmother, faced intense pressure to abandon education in favor of starting a family. She shares her experience:

My mother gave birth to many children but lost them all because of infant mortality. I was the only surviving child. My maternal family did not approve of my formal education. The whole lineage needed me to have biological children so that they could have people to ascend the stool otherwise the opportunity could pass the family by, and it may take hundred years before it is our turn. Some of my uncles visited me at school and threatened me with gods. They said our ancestors were unhappy with me. My mother was the reigning queen mother so I could go to school without paying heed to their concerns.

Donkorno succumbed to familial pressure from her maternal uncles following her mother’s passing, leading to an arranged marriage with a member of another royal family. She subsequently bore seven children, one of whom now serves as the reigning queen mother. The quote highlights gatekeepers concerted efforts to obstruct the FGEW’s education opportunities prioritizing familial prestige, traditions, and the duty of women to procreate.

The interest of gatekeepers in this scenario can be termed as collective or communal as consideration for access is hinged on whether it benefits the whole lineage. Thus, for the gatekeepers, quitting school to produce children was non- negotiable. Also, continuity and survival of the collective claim to the stool also guided gatekeepers in how they gatekept access. Donkorno continued her education anyway after her third birth and subsequently worked as a banker.

Other families: to go or not to go to school

I make a categorical distinction between the royal family and the non-royal families because the data points to differential education access experiences between the two groups of families. Gatekeeping practices varied among non-royal families or households. In some cases, gatekeepers actively prevented first-generation educated women from attending school, and ensured their drop-out if they did manage to enroll.

The economic rationale underlying access to, and non-access to education played out prominently in other families. It is, however, difficult to allude economic underpins to all the gatekeeping of educational access situations that were found. Some first generation educated women could access education, but their choice of courses was restricted to those that did not enable them to break out of the mold of traditionally approved gendered roles. They could not do other courses that were considered atypical to their gender roles.

Other families: gatekeeping, resource dilution, and the gendered nature of access

Gatekeeping decisions regarding education access, particularly those that exclude certain individuals, stem from a multifaceted interplay of interests, encompassing cultural and economic factors. In financially strained families, resource distribution among children is stretched. Consequently, gatekeepers may factor in the gender of the child when determining access to education. Economic constraints often prompt families to prioritize the education of male children over females. Thus, while a family’s finances may impact children’s access to education, gatekeeping disproportionately affects females’ access. Obea narrates her education access experience:

When the family is struggling financially, you could be asked to quit school. My family had always had financial challenges but that did not stop my brothers from going to school. When our farm got burnt in elementary school, I was asked to quit school. I was later enrolled after a year. When my mother gave birth to my twin brothers, I was asked to quit school to help take care of them. My twin brothers were three years before I could go back to school. I know girls who were made to drop out of school for one reason or the other and never returned. Any reason can pass for why a girl is asked to drop out of school. If you do not have an uncle, a grand uncle who can advocate for you, your education could be curtailed at any point.

This finding reveals that even though resource dilution and the economic rational may account for the disruption of school as noted in the literature, activities of gatekeepers further make the experience of such non-access gender determined (Birdsall et al. 2005; Boyle et al. 2002; Bruneforth 2006; Cardoso and Verner 2007; Dachi and Garrett 2003; Hunter and May 2003; Porteus et al. 2000; Vavrus 2002).

Other families: getting past the gatekeepers, choice of school, and subject

Gatekeepers often uphold the status quo by limiting females to specific schools or subjects effectively preserving the existing order and limiting access to education. Imposing constraints on choice of schools and subjects enabled them to exert control over their educational opportunities. Getting past these gatekeepers to attend schools of their choice and to read subjects of their interests was always difficult. I discuss these two scenarios below: First, it is the kind of subject and school and the second is the kind of subject as a standalone issue.

Gatekeeping choice of school: Footnote 1Achimota to medicine

The consideration regarding which school a FGEW may attend is significantly influenced by the preferences of the gatekeeper. Focusing on the nuclear family as a locus of educational decision-making revealed instances where husbands and fathers often steer females towards specific schools, deeming them superior. In this situation, gatekeeping was not necessarily about the zero-sum situation and or constraining of choices but had a transformative potential where gatekeeping is done to ensure when access is allowed, the FGEW could attend the best school option approved by the gatekeeper. Furthermore, some individuals insisted that if they had attended specific schools, their daughters should also attend those schools or none. Nana Tiwaa, a 66-year-old economist and a FGEW in her nuclear family illustrates the above:

…My schooling decision sparked conflict in my home. Upon completing form five, my father intended for me to enroll at Achimota School. However, in his absence, I had the chance to attend Aburi Girls Secondary School, a choice he opposed. For him,…it is either I attended Achimota school or no school. Despite my mother’s protests, I remained out of school for a year due to my father’s insistence on Achimota school. When my maternal uncle intervened, he sided with my father and admonished my mother for complaining. I knew there was no democratic way out of this situation. I finally went to Achimota school in I966, and I entered the University of Ghana in 1974.

Gatekeepers exerted control over the subject selection of FGEWs, dictating which subjects they could pursue despite their access to education. Nana Tiwaa opined:

From forms five to sixth form, then a decision had to be made. My father thought I should go to the sciences because for him, I must become a medical doctor, but I aspired to pursue arts. My mother thought my grades were much better with the arts, so she opposed the imposition of medical studies on me. Despite the challenges, I eventually pursued arts, albeit with difficulty.

The FGEW in this subsection did not need to fight the same battle as the ones we have explored because theirs were not an outright non-enrolment battle but rather, a battle of subject choice. In this context, the gatekeepers restricted access to only certain subjects. Family pride associated with specific schools and gender-based considerations played pivotal roles in shaping gatekeeping decisions regarding access to education for the FGEW examined.

Gatekeeping subjects atypical to their gender: midwifery as the status-quo

Many first-generation educated women in this study pursued midwifery in school leading to a significant proportion of them becoming midwives. The gendered nature of subject selection reinforced traditional roles, steering girls towards subjects aligned with societal expectations rather than challenging cultural norms and promoting opportunities for broader educational exploration. Lucy a trained midwife shared her story:

My uncles and my aunties supported my education until I was about to go to Teacher Training College in 1937. They wanted me to follow in my mother’s footsteps as a traditional birth attendant. I resisted familial pressure to become a traditional birth attendant like my mother, choosing instead to attend Teacher Training College with my father’s support. On a Saturday morning, upon returning home, my family was distraught due to the loss of a newborn during delivery assisted by my mother, a rare occurrence interpreted as an ominous sign by our ancestors.…My maternal uncles demanded that I become a traditional birth attendant (TBA) to placate them. Instead of becoming a TBA, which required little training, my father compromised to meet my uncles halfway. I was made to stop teacher training college to go to midwifery school and that is how I became a midwife. I left teacher training college to pursue midwifery, which led to my becoming a midwife.

The excerpt illustrates how paternal approval for education does not always dictate its terms, as maternal uncles (extended family gatekeepers) may wield influence over the manner of access. Gatekeepers’ interests in the case explored are twofold: upholding gender roles and ensuring continuity in family professions.

The complex web of gatekeeping access to education

The study underscores the considerable influence of gatekeepers in shaping educational opportunities for first-generation educated women, despite their familial educational backgrounds. The gatekeepers, including fathers, maternal uncles, and grand uncles, formed a multi-tiered system within the family structure, to regulate access to education. The fathers were the gatekeepers for the nuclear family and the mother’s brothers, and maternal uncles were external gatekeepers.

Family members, including fathers, maternal uncles, and maternal grand uncles, wielded cultural authority. This authority was derived from their positions as heads of the nuclear and extended families, enabling them to make pivotal decisions regarding finances, education, and household matters.

Mothers, daughters, and sons did not oversee family resources. They were not the head of their families, and they did not take key decisions in matters pertaining to finances, education, and residence. They, however, gate watched. Gate watching explains the guarding of access or non-access gates or pathways already constructed by gatekeepers. Those who guard access gates gate-watch for or against gatekeepers.

Gatekeepers formed a network of gatekeeping necessitating a girl to seek approval from multiple sources for education access. Conversely, those with less authority could also unite to negotiate access. Whilst gatekeepers were mostly men, a woman could have a gate-keeping power that is employed to gate watch against gatekeepers’ decisions. For example, a woman who occupies the position of a Queen mother can gatekeep education access. Thus, there are various dimensions of gatekeeping or gate-watching, and the findings show that not all men have gatekeeping powers over all women.

The findings further reveal that much of the micro-politics of access was rarely about outright gatekeeping of enrolment decisions but about decisions made after access. The actors (fathers, mother’s brother or child’s maternal uncle, mother’s uncle or child’s maternal grand uncle, mother, and daughter) did not gate-keep or gate-watch access in a vacuum. They controlled resources which enabled their gatekeeping or gate-watching activities. However, these cultural resources did not have equal power value; for example, the traditional gender role of fathers and maternal uncles as heads of nuclear and extended families respectively hold more power value as compared to a child’s gender role.

Additionally, when one gatekeeper restricted educational access, another could intervene or counteract. Yet, if two gatekeepers aligned, they formed an impenetrable gatekeeping network. When a gatekeeper from the nuclear family grant education access to a daughter, another gatekeeper from the extended family can determine the nature and terms of such access. When a father opposes his daughter’s enrollment in school, seeking maternal uncles’ intervention is a typical recourse. If the uncle concurs with the decision, the girl remains excluded from education, if the uncle opposes the decision, the girl might go to school.

The decisions of gatekeepers could intersect, overlap, and complement one another in their gatekeeping mechanisms. The education access chances of girls are shaped in unimaginable ways when girls need approval from multiple levels of gatekeepers before they can go to school unimpeded. It is also important to note that there are levels to the application of power by gatekeepers. Some gatekeepers have more power to shape education opportunities for girls as compared to others.

Levels of gatekeeping and cooperation among gatekeepers

There is no strict structure or hierarchy of gatekeeping. However, gatekeepers wielded varied control over access. In the matrilineal society of Akyem Abuakwa Kyebi, the “Abuasuapanin” the male leader of the matrilineage or the extended family is on top of the hierarchy. The Abuasuapanin is usually the mother’s oldest maternal uncle or child’s maternal grand uncle. When a non-enrolment or a non-transition education decision at the nuclear household level is reported to the extended family, gatekeepers sometimes cooperate based on mutual interest or perceived benefits of such decisions.

Certain gatekeepers wielded greater influence over education access decisions than others, revealing the hierarchical dynamics within gatekeeping and underscoring the varied significance of their approval or disapproval. This hierarchy became apparent when gatekeepers express concern over the potential for others to countermand their decisions. An extract from the autobiographical narrative of Akua speaks to this clearly:

When I got to class six, my father did not want me to go to form one. He said I could read and write and that was okay […]. My mother told one of my uncles.…I think after the extended family met during a funeral of one of our cousins, among other things, they deliberated on how to help me […]. They decided that if I could read and write then it was okay to end my education at primary school. One of my maternal uncles later called my mother and gave her some money for my education. He expressed surprise Kofi’s actions, questioning why Kofi would act contrary to the family’s established consensus during the family meeting […].

Akua clarified that the extended family was unable to support her because they prioritized reclaiming encroached family lands, leaving little to support her education. The uncle who stepped in to intervene was wealthy and capable of contravening decisions made collectively in extended family gatherings highlighting hierarchies within gatekeeping. It emphasizes varying degrees of authority among gatekeepers, wherein financial means enable certain individuals to override consensus decisions to restrict education access.

The interest of gatekeepers in their collective deliberations on access is about prioritizing the collective interest over the individual interest. Thus, gatekeepers cooperated based on perceived mutual benefits and threats. They would rather use monies accrued from extended family’s landed properties to reclaim an encroached property that had value to all gatekeepers than help a girl go to school. It presupposes that if gatekeepers thought that extended family resources if used for one could not benefit all gatekeepers, they can be uncooperative to educational access decisions. The support provided by the gatekeeper was influenced by their relationship with the girl’s mother. Gatekeeping access in this scenario is, therefore, a product of close social relationship and reciprocity for previous kind gestures shown.

Discussion

The distribution of cultural resource available to and permitted by men and women in the family underpin gatekeeping positions. However, not all male maternal relatives are gatekeepers with the ability to keep discrete gates of their own and to sorely determine access or non-access. Keeping discrete gate is defined as the ability to solely determine and enable or deny access. Some keep watch of existing gates (Bruns 2005). Gate-watching existing gates in this context has to do with those who make sure that access and non-access decisions of the gatekeepers are strictly adhered to. Women can also be conceptualized as gate-watchers, however, they mostly gate-watch against non-enrolment decisions involving their daughters.

Gatekeepers, enabled by cultural norms, regulate girls’ education access within traditional family structures. At the nuclear family levels, fathers played gatekeeping roles and I refer to them as primary gatekeepers because they are the first point of access. Maternal uncles and grand uncles, the gatekeepers in the extended family otherwise termed the secondary gatekeepers because unsatisfactory gatekeeping or access decisions are referred to them for determination.

Education gatekeeping systems can tentatively be defined in this context as the process by which male maternal relations and fathers filter access opportunity and select limited number of people they consider worthy of education access.

The typology of individuals deemed eligible for education access comprises the following traits:

  • They should be willing to go to school.

  • They should have conscious mothers who are capable of circumventing gatekeepers.

  • They must be willing to do subjects typical of their gender.

  • They must accept subjects of gatekeepers choosing.

  • They must attend schools of gatekeepers choosing.

  • They should have the support of gate-watching resisters of non-access.

  • Their education access needs should not clash with the collective needs of the lineage or family.

  • They should not be a direct descendant of the stool.

  • They must be willing to compromise on how high the academic ladder they climb.

  • They must be willing to produce children for the lineage.

The gendered nature of access determination is shaped by various interests that may vary across families. The Table 2 shows the types of gatekeepers and their motivation or interest in gatekeeping access.

Table 2 Types of gatekeepers and their motivation or interest in gatekeeping access
Full size table

In various family contexts, gatekeeping and access determination reflect diverse interests. In the royal families, the priority is lineage continuity, with proximity to the stool serving as a crucial determinant for access. In the other families however, the relative resource excuse for non-access was confirmed. This economic rational was, however, employed to keep females out of school. Gatekeepers exercised control over the choice of school and subjects for women permitted to attend school, with the intent of upholding traditional gender roles.

The gatekeeping strategies created two education pathways, non-access, and access with conditions. Gendered pathways to access were created in two ways. First, access to education for women was commonly restricted, and second, their choice of school, and subjects must align with traditional gender roles.

In the traditional family structure, gatekeeping by multiple gatekeepers presented impenetrable barriers to access. However, financial influence can override collective non-access decisions reinforcing the dynamics of hierarchies existing among gatekeepers.

Conclusion

In this paper, I explored gatekeeping around access to girls’ education in a typical matrilineal society in Ghana. By drawing on the qualitative investigation of the first generation of educated women in Ghana, I have provided insights into the nature of gatekeeping activities that shaped education access for this rarely explored population.

Specifically, the paper demonstrates that gatekeepers, who were mostly men, determined both education access and terms of access for the inaugural cohorts of educated women (FGEW). Heavily influenced by gendered power dynamics enabled by their traditional roles as fathers, maternal uncles, and maternal grand uncles, they controlled, shaped, denied, or limited access to their education. They implemented gatekeeping systems that required women, acting as gate-watchers, to either negotiate access for their daughters or support unflinchingly non-access decisions made by gatekeepers.

Gate-watchers negotiated with two categories of gatekeepers: those who upheld traditional practices and those open to altering traditional practices regarding education. Access negotiations resulted in outcomes such as conditional access, unconditional access, and non-access. Conditional access meant that women’s educational options were limited even post-enrollment as cultural preferences, notably for certain subjects like midwifery, largely shaped the educational paths of these women. Non-access outcomes often contradicted the economic rationales for denying women access.

The paper affirms the importance of examining micro-household dynamics in understanding girls’ education access. Whilst this paper confirms the importance of members of the family and extended family relations in providing education access (Lloyd and Blanc 1996; World Bank 2008), it extends the debate to gatekeeping structures that circumscribed educational opportunities for girls in the period under discussion. Paying attention to the specificities of contexts in which maternal relations gatekept education for girls is crucial to understanding how the rarely explored generation of women accessed education. The findings enable readers to understand that beyond family income and resource dilution, there are other variations of micro-level factors of education. Education access is embedded in household or family dynamics, social relationships, and kinship looms large and determine gendered access and non-access.

Theoretically, this is an attempt at employing gatekeeping theory in framing the culturally embedded factors shaping gatekeeping decisions and the resultant access outcomes. By conceptualizing the gatekeeping influences on girls’ access to education, this paper contributes to the discourse on girls’ education access within a Ghanaian context.

Policy wise, this paper reiterates the importance of recognizing that efforts at the macro-level to fix issues of access to education including school infrastructure, scholarships at the meso-level, may not suffice. The implication is that policymakers must implement policies with the understanding that after macro level access issues have been settled, individuals must contend with micro-level access factors such as gatekeepers. Consequently, education policies, even gender-neutral policies must emphasize the differential effects on men and women to ameliorate micro-level factors such as gatekeeping practices which leave many females behind the access gate.

The study site is a matrilineal community, where maternal relations played a role in determining access. While I do not seek to generalize the findings, and the aim was not about reducible findings in other contexts, the study has larger implications. The findings can be transferable and or the study reproducible in similar matrilineal scenarios where maternal relationships as a key factor in access determination looms large.

Micro-level factors, particularly gatekeepers, play a pivotal role in shaping children’s access to education, underscoring the need for their consideration in any micro-level analysis. Further research is necessary to explore the variability of gatekeeping mechanisms considering different societal contexts, family dynamics and generational shifts or changes. This paper emphasized those born between 1917 and 1957, therefore, further research is needed to focus on different contexts and times to enable us to appreciate how this works in its local variations elsewhere. Comparative research is needed to elucidate the nuances of gatekeeping behaviors in Ghana, to shed light on how gatekeeping practices in matrilineal societies differed from or paralleled to that of gatekeepers in patrilineal society with contrasting patriarchal dynamics and social structures.