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

from Part II - Policies and Institutions for Social Cohesion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2019

By
Line Kuppens  and
Arnim Langer
Edited by
Hiroyuki Hino ,
Arnim Langer ,
John Lonsdale  and
Frances Stewart
Hiroyuki Hino
Affiliation:
Duke University, North Carolina and the University of Cape Town
Arnim Langer
Affiliation:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
John Lonsdale
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Frances Stewart
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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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.

Keywords

Social cohesionEducationCôte d’IvoireKenyaPeace educationMulticultural educationCitizenship educationTeachers
Type
Chapter
Information
From Divided Pasts to Cohesive Futures
Reflections on Africa
 , pp. 322 - 345
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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