The Rebels Within: An Analysis of First Generation Educated Women in Ghana, a Study of Kyebi.

Abstract

The current debate about understanding the changes in global educational patterns has led to much documentation on the subject. Scholars who have studied this have served us with more macro explanations than micro level politics. The study therefore takes as its focus, the understanding of the tensions, contentions and negotiations that underlay the everyday decisions (of who receives education) as an arena of micro politics and choice as a form of everyday power. Drawing on the data, collected using an in-depth interview and informal conversations with 30 participants from Kyebi, the inquiry explores an understanding of other determinants of who gets educated as an alternative to the conservative traditional structural approach. I analysed the data within the framework of Stephen Lukes‟ Concept of Power and James Scott theory of resistance and themes were generated accordingly. The findings suggest that the key decision makers around enrollment and non-enrollment decisions of the FGEW were their fathers. The mothers, whose daughters were affected by non-enrolment decisions resisted through covert and overt means. It was also uncovered that the mothers of the First Generation Educated Women in Ghana (FGEW) resisted by drawing alliances which served as situations enabling and constraining political actions. The findings further suggest that, children took part in the politics of resistance passively and actively. Gate keepers also played crucial role with respect to who got educated and who did not. A study that looks at both macro level explanations and how families respond to it at the micro level concurrently will be useful in painting a proper picture of how the two intersect. The study further recommends that since macro-level factors is but one of just the many determinants of education, aside a different family political contexts, policy makers should find ways of mediating the complex relationship between these two spaces in any educational policy, aimed at ensuring quality education for all.