Paper long abstract:

'Puberty rites celebration in some rural Ghanaian communities in recent times has been charged with being irrelevant to the changing times and incapable of preparing the young female for what ‘they are to practice when they become adults’. Researchers are questioning the techno-cultural gap that is haunting the education and training of Ghanaian youth.

This project uses a qualitative research design model known as the ‘Africalogical critical ethnographic instrumental case study’ to uncover meaning of this rite from the perspective of the participant and investigate how this rite impacts on the schooling of the young female. This design is a new methodology that is intended to support and reinforce the growing interest in qualitative research in developing countries like Ghana whiles helping to correct the biases created by previous approaches. The project generally provides an excellent guideline for the adoption of the ‘africalogical critical ethnographic instrumental case study’ approach and offer a detailed and well-argued rational to justify its use. This new methodology employs feminist and modernisation theories as its theoretical framework. The findings of the project is intended to be an instrument for Ghanaian stakeholders, including colleague teachers to manage and assist children who have gone through this rite to integrate well in their schools'.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is concerned with the linkages between young people’s health, well-being and mobility potential in Ghana. Although mobility constraints and transport failures are often implicated in studies concerning access to health services, they have rarely been considered in any detail. Research focused on the linkages between health, well-being and mobility in a child/youth context is particularly sparse. Empirical evidence from Ghana allows us to compare the impact of mobility and transport constraints in diverse types of geographical location on young people’s health and well-being. We focus not only on the more obvious connections around differing physical access to health services in contrasting locations (distance; freedom to travel; availability of cheap, regular, reliable public transport; transport availability in referral situations), but also on the potentially significant implications of Africa’s enormous transport gap (and consequent demands for young people’s labour as pedestrian porters, especially in remoter rural locations) for health and well-being . Our evidence comes from a very diverse range of sources, including intensive qualitative research with children and adults (in-depth interviews, accompanied walks, focus groups, life histories), and a follow-up questionnaire survey administered to children aged 7 -18 years. The research was conducted in eight different sites i.e. urban, peri-urban, rural and remote rural sites in two different agro-ecological zones (coastal zone, forest zone). Our aim in the paper is to draw attention to the diversity of connections between young people’s mobility constraints and health and well-being, the diversity in experience both across geographical locations and within different locational contexts (with reference to factors such as age, gender, birth-order, socio-economic status, patterns of health service and transport provision etc.), and to suggest areas where further research is required.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is an extract from a PhD thesis entitled the African Caribbean Educational experiences in Preston A case study presented to the University of Central Lancashire and examined in 2006 by Cecile Wright. The study looked the educational performance of African Caribbean people from the 1960s to the present. The data was collected and analysed using the post modernist theoretical framework.

The research attempted to identify the experiences of a group of African Caribbean people within the British education system. It explored the patterns of experiences among three African Caribbean generations in Preston. Data was gathered from questionnaire, interviews along with ethnographic observations from local secondary school and participation in seminars and conferences. The research concludes that while racism remains a widespread educational experience among the three generations of African Caribbean people studied, a great disparity of achievement also exists at different levels of educational success. While the second generation tops the success rates of educational attainment, the third generation fared abysmally.

The research found that the length of African Caribbean peoples’ stay in Britain does not correlate with their educational success and concludes that whilst living in semi urban environments does not guarantee educational success, in comparison it is even far worse for African Caribbean people living in deprived inner city council estates to achieve success in the educational system. The research proposes significant recommendations for policy makers, Local Education Authorities, schools, teachers, and the African Caribbean community especially parents to work together to promote educational success among African Caribbean people.