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- Convenors:
-
Anneke Newman
(Ghent University)
Hannah Hoechner (University of East Anglia)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- KH104
- Start time:
- 30 June, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This panel will analyse the multiple influences of transnational migration on education in Africa. We invite papers which address migration as an aspiration or experience which shapes education trajectories, and migrants as decision-makers and funders of education.
Long Abstract:
This panel will analyse the multiple influences of transnational migration on education in Africa. Papers are invited to speak to (and challenge) the conference focus on urban and rural relationships, by considering the ways that dynamics in both settings can only be understood with reference to complex transnational influences. Participants are invited to address the panel theme in 4 ways: a) transnational migration as an aspiration which shapes education preference and trajectories; b) impact of transnational family life and child-rearing practices on children's educational experiences; c) influence of migrants and growing diaspora communities on educational strategies (for instance, how migrants shape the trajectories of family members back home, whether through advice or sending remittances); and d) transnational migrants as funders of or investors of education. Questions to ask include: how does a transnational perspective enhance our understanding of education in Africa? In what ways do these insights suggest inadequacies in current methodological or theoretical approaches to education on the continent? What are the implications for policy? Through this focus, the panel aims to enlarge current debates on the 'internationalization' of education, which tends to focus on secular and formal schooling rather than alternative education types, flows of affluent students moving from low to high income countries, and the educational experiences of the 'diaspora' in host countries. Papers may address any type of education (secular, religious, non-formal, etc.) to reflect the diverse and adaptive nature of education in contemporary Africa. They must draw on original empirical data.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
Tracing the history of several Ghanaian families from the late nineteenth century until today, this paper analyzes the influences of transnational migration on education strategies and careers within extended families. The members of the families I discuss largely come from middle-class backgrounds.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I will analyze the influences of transnational migration on education strategies within extended families from Southern Ghana. I will trace the educational history of several extended families from the late nineteenth century until today. In discussing my case studies, I will take the historical background of educational migration in Ghana into account. Many members of the families in my study come from middle or even upper-middle class backgrounds. As such, they have long been highly mobile and migrated for education and work from the late nineteenth century onwards. While studies on transnational migration often focus on migration to the Global North, I will also take south-south migration into consideration which was very common within the Ghanaian middle class, including the families in my study. One focus will be the impact of transnational family life and child-rearing practices on children's educational experiences and career choices. More particularly, in Ghana but also abroad, some children were socialized into an international context due to their parents' education and jobs. They grew up in an international field, and sometimes in gated communities. Not only did they go to international schools in Ghana and abroad, but they also acquired international contacts and the habitus of a transnational middle class, which facilitated their professional careers.
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyzes how resilience is being built in Ghanaian youth through national and transnational mobility. We argue that the educational context in Ghana, Africa is of crucial significance for building youth’s resilience and hence their ability to shape their educational trajectories.
Paper long abstract:
This paper analyzes how Ghanaian youth's national and transnational mobility shape their educational trajectories both at home and abroad by impacting their resilience. The academic debate on the relation between youth's migration, resilience and educational trajectories has mainly been studied by psychologists who focus on a single nation-state context to study resilience as a response to challenging circumstances. In this national framing, migration is seen as exposing youth to adversity after which youth need to develop resilience in order to assure 'positive adaptation' to the national context, for example in the educational sphere (Khanlou & Wray, 2014). Yet little has been done by way of researching what kind of mobility youth engage in and how it affects their resilience, and hence ability to shape their educational trajectories. We follow youth between Ghana and The Netherlands: their mobility as they travel back to Ghana on summer vacations or for educational purposes and document a process of gaining or re-gaining self-confidence and courage to continue their educational trajectories in The Netherlands. We argue that mobility exposes youth to different contexts of educational expectations through which they build resilience thus showing that even when youth migrate abroad the educational context in Ghana is of significance in shaping resilience in youth. As such, youth's educational trajectories transcend the walls of the classroom and the borders of nation-states, allowing family members who live in different localities to make them resilient. The paper is based on 19 months of multi-sited ethnographic research following 30 16-25 year old mobile Ghanaian youth.
Paper short abstract:
This research connects diaspora and transnationalism studies with the study of change within religious schooling practices in Muslim societies by exploring the involvement of Senegalese migrants within the religious education sector of their homeland.
Paper long abstract:
In the context of widespread anxieties about Islamic radicalisation, Western societies look uneasily upon youngsters from Muslim immigrant communities, especially if they travel abroad to acquire Islamic knowledge. This research connects diaspora and transnationalism studies with the study of change within religious schooling practices in Muslim societies by exploring the involvement of Senegalese migrants to the West within the religious education sector of their homeland. In particular, it asks what type of education Senegalese migrants demand for their children, and what this demand reveals about the conditions in their 'host' countries. It then explores how the religious education sector in Senegal has responded to this demand. Finally, it investigates the experiences of migrants' children who have come to Senegal for their religious study, exploring particularly what these experiences imply for their religious identities and their sense of belonging. The paper draws on altogether eight months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Dakar and its suburbs since 2014.
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on the Mandela Soccer Academy, which was established in Ghana by Mohammed Issa, a Lebanese-Ghanaian entrepreneur. The article analyzes the connections between the local, the national, and the transnational at the academy, focusing on its cosmopolitan educational strategies.
Paper long abstract:
Since their arrival in the late Nineteenth century, Lebanese immigrants have come to play an important role in Ghanaian society, especially in commerce. In community development, however, their influence is considered to be less salient, and therefore it is less researched. This paper tries to fill this lacuna by focusing on the Mandela Soccer Academy, which was established in Ghana by Mohammed Issa, a Lebanese-Ghanaian entrepreneur. The paper analyzes the connections between the local, the national, and the transnational at the academy. As a Lebanese-Ghanaian who spent most of his schooling years in the UK, Mohammed brings the discourses and practices of his own transnational and multi-cultural background to the academy. The educational curriculum of the academy incorporates various forms of cosmopolitan ethos aimed at exposing the children to different cultural values, which are perceived by Mohammed to be constructive for them. At the same time, the academy provides Mohammed with an opportunity to bolster the social collateral of the Lebanese in Ghana. The paper explores the ways in which the academy has become a juncture of transnational cultural production, and assesses the extent to which the children have embraced Issa's worldview. These claims are based on recent findings that have emerged through long term ethnography at the academy, which included daily observations and interviews with its members. The paper relates to this panel by dealing with issues of transnational migrants as funders of or investors of education, and the influence of migrants and growing diaspora communities on educational strategies.