10 - Building Social Cohesion through Education in Africa? Lessons from Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya

Summary

Increasingly, studies have focused on the potential of the education system to enhance social cohesion, in particular in multi-ethnic societies. Indeed, the education system can strengthen social cohesion by providing learners from diverse groups equal learning opportunities. Moreover, schooling can impart the “rules of the game” in a democracy and contribute to developing a common sense of belonging. In this chapter, we reflect on three strands of education that are generally not explicitly linked to social cohesion, but that could play a particularly promising role in this regard: multicultural, citizenship, and peace education. Innovatively, we study these educational approaches from an African perspective – for the continent is often overlooked in the current literature – analysing education in postconflict Côte d’Ivoire and in the ethnically divided society of Kenya. Notwithstanding promising contributions, we identify a number of hurdles to advancing social cohesion through education, including, most importantly, remaining biases and negative inter-group attitudes among teachers.