Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T17:54:10.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Politicization of Teachers' Associations in the Côte d'Ivoire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Dwayne Woods
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article explores the role that teachers in the Côte d'Ivoire played in the democratization process in the early 1990s. More specifically, it looks at the socio-economic and ideological factors that placed teachers at the helm of the contestation movements that contributed to the end of nearly three decades of autocratic one-party rule. While this is a case study, its implications are, mutatis muntantis, more general. The principal argument developed in this article is that teachers occupy a strategic but precarious position in many African societies (Diop and Diouf 1990). They, more than any other social group, with the possible exception of students, embody the contradictory dimensions of post-colonial African politics and society. On the one hand, as Robert Fatton (1987, 63–64) notes, they are connected to the ruling class in so far as those in power often turn to them as a way to legitimate their rule. On other hand, teachers are part of Africa's fragile middle class, since they benefit from the relatively high expenditures of African governments on education. Nevertheless, they, particularly secondary and university teachers saw themselves as an alternative elite to those in power (Oyediran 1993, 221).

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , December 1996 , pp. 113 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amondji, Marcel. 1988. Côte d'Ivoire: la dépendance et l'épreuve des faits. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Bailly, Diégou. 1995. La Réinstauration du Multipartisme en Côte d'Ivoire ou la Double Mort d'Houphouët-Bogny. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Berry, Sara. 1985. Fathers Work for their Sons. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chabal, Patrick. 1994. Power in Africa: An Essay in Political Interpretation. New York: St. Martin Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Micheal. 1974. Urban Policy and Political Conflict in Africa: A Study of the Ivory Coast. Chicago: University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Contamin, B. and Fauré, Yves. 1990. La Bataile des Entreprises Publiques en Côte d'Ivoire: L'histoire d'un ajustement interne. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Conte, Bernard and Lavenue, Jean-Jacques. 1992. “La Côte d'Ivoire, Un an Apès Les Confrontations Electorales de 1990: Hpothèses et Hypothèques,” Revue Juridiques et Politiques 46/1:1–27.Google Scholar
Daddieh, Cyril K. 1988. “The Management of Educational Crisis in Côte d'Ivoire,” The Journal of Modern African Studies 26/4:639–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Désalmand, Paul. 1986. “Une Aventure Ambiquë: Le Programe d'Education Télévisuelle (1971-1982),” Politique Africaine 24 (Decembre): 87–110.Google Scholar
Désalmand, Paul. 1989. Histoire de L'education en Côte d'Ivoire. Paris: Arenthian Press.Google Scholar
Diop, M. C. et Diouf, M.. 1990. Le Sénégal sous Abdou Diouf. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Duruflé, Gilles. 1982. L'adjustement structurel en Afrique (Sénégal, Côte d'Ivoire, Madagascar). Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Robert, Fatton Jr.. 1987. The Making of a Liberal Democracy: Senegal's Passive Revolution: 1975-1987. Boulder: Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Fauré, Yves. 1993. “Democracy and Realism: Reflections on the Case of the Côte d'Ivoire,” Africa 63.3:3–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ggabo, Laurent. 1983. La Côte d'Ivoire: Pour une Alternative Démocratique. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Hyden, Goran. 1993. “Academic Freedom in Africa: A Right Long Overlooked,” in Cohen, Ronald, Hyden, Goran, and Nagan, Winston P. (eds.) Human Rights and Governance in Africa. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, pp. 235–55.Google Scholar
Kone, Samba. 1991. Une Année Pas Comme Les Autres. Abidjan: Collection la Côte d'Ivoire Actuelle.Google Scholar
Mbembe, J.A. 1985. Les Jeunes et L'ordre Politique en Afrique Noire. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Morgenthau, Ruth S. 1964. Political Parties in French-Speaking West Africa. Oxford: Claredon Press.Google Scholar
N'Da, Paul. 1987. Les Intellectuels et Le Pouvoir en Afrique Noire. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Oyediran, Oyeleye. 1993. “Intellectuals, Higher Education and Democracy in Nigeria: Which Way?” in Diamond, Larry (ed.) Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries. Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner, pp. 217–32.Google Scholar
Peil, Margaret. 1981. Cities and Suburbs: Urban Life in West Africa. New York: Africana Publishing.Google Scholar
Woods, Dwayne. 1994. “Elites, Ethnicity, Class, Clientelism, and ‘Hometown’ Associations in the Côte d'Ivoire: an Historical Analysis of State-society Links,” Africa 64/4 (Winter): 465–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zolberg, Aristide. 1964. One-Party Government in the Ivory Coast. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar