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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
Show panel list
Education Policies and Social COntinuity and Change
| Panel |
18. Education and Social change in Eastern and Southern Africa
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| Paper ID | 254 |
| Author(s) |
Wedin, Ãsa
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | During the period of 2000-2003 I carried out research in Karagwe District, in Tanzania. The focus of my research was on literacy practices in schools, in homes and in the society and on bridges between what happens in children’s homes and in school. My talk will be on part of the findings, on how educational policies relate to to social and structural continuity and change. I show that through history individuals that traditionally held low status have been able to use education as a way to empower themselves, both economically and politically. At the same time members of the traditional élite have been able to reproduce their power by making sure that their own offspring have access to empowering types of education. In this process language attitudes and hierarchical structures are important.
I will also show how high educational demands, scarcity of recourses, language policies and authoritative structures in combination with colonial roots of the educational system, have created an educational system where today face keeping strategies constitute a great barrier for learning. These strategies are implicitly used to sort pupils. I argue that if these hidden strategies were made visible, teachers and policy makers in Tanzania could develop ways to make education both more relevant and efficient.
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