Social Differentiation and Inequality in Education: A Critical Enquiry

The various discussions in the literature on social differentiation in general and inequality of education in particular are varied and wide. One of the contributions to this literature on social differentiation is Lamont & Molnár (2002) who considered boundaries as differentiation of things that may lead to general inequality, of which educational inequality is a component; where some categories of people and social groups do not get their rightful and equitable share of the delivery of education. It was argued that symbolic boundaries should be considered as “real’’ boundaries because of their constraining nature and why this

becomes a social issue is that sometimes as a result of these boundaries, some social groups are treated unequally.

In Chapter two, I did agree about the usefulness of boundaries; however, the concern here is how people are treated in the process of boundary-making; as boundaries could lead to a power play which may determine how much of the public good some people get or do not get. It has been pointed out that boundary work foments categorical pairs which if institutionalised creates durable inequalities (Tilly 1999). In this regard, boundary work in education plays out when the power bearers of society design the educational curriculum which to some extent does not favour everybody (especially the poor). This Chapter also shows that power play in a community creates boundaries and also promote favouritism in in-groups and antagonism towards outgroups which affects members in very concrete ways (Blokland 2017; Hogg &

Abrams 1998). However, I pointed out that boundaries are fluid in that they blur-up when the motive behind them change. A typical case is where education was opened up to northern Ghana after independence, when it was then thought that the said part of the country could not be held in servitude forever. Also, it has been argued that school segregation produces some form of social closure because the ruling class excludes some people by manipulating the school resources to their town advantage (fiel 2015).

As the development of education in Ghana is rooted in historical antecedence and spatial ramifications of the development process, I discussed colonialism and the nation-sate formation in chapter two in order to show how these concepts can contribute to social inequality among people. It was revealed that colonialism has produced favouritism and division among people within countries in Africa. Wong

&Apple (2002: 181) understand state formation as a historical process that offers the elite the opportunity to foster a sense of identity as well forestall social differentiation in order to win the support of the governed. This thesis has shown that the Northern part of Ghana is like what Anderson describes as an “imagined community” in the sense that despite the “the inequalities and exploitation that may exist, the nation is conceived as bond together”. (Anderson 2006: 7).

Education is a tool that is used to form a national identity. More especially, many countries of the colonised world have a sense of identity in the colonial education.

It has been shown that Ghana still has relics of the colonial education system where many senior high schools are boarding schools such that students are accommodated in the schools. The use of English as a national language and teaching it in the schools brings a sense of identity to the people. However, I argued alongside Churchill (1996) that the adoption of a national language and a national educational curriculum favour the elite in society.

The role of educational policy in nation building has also been discussed in this chapter. While agreeing that educational policy can be used to build a nation, I noted that if educational policy is not carefully crafted and thoroughly implemented, there would not be holistic national development. Thus, a good educational policy should aim at reducing inequalities among the people as Ball (2008) claims, some policies lack the element of equity. Fuller & Rubinson (1992) posited that for a country to be able to implement its educational policy well, it largely depends on the resources available to such a country. This however is a challenge for Ghana. Being a developing country, Ghana is faced with resource-related challenges in the implementation of educational policies where varied ethnic groups expect more from the Government.

On education as the nation state project and social exclusion, I posited that social exclusion is related to Tilly’s (1999) opportunity hoarding as a mechanism of durable inequality. I argued that to do opportunity hoarding is to keep something away from others and by doing that there is exclusion. Social exclusion and inclusion are related concepts that can be found in the educational system in Ghana. Though social exclusion originated from the global North, it might have spread out to the global south (Sayed 2002), through globalisation and colonialism. The concept has its meaning in poverty, deprivation and marginalisation in Ghana. The operationalisation of social exclusion in this study relates to the situation were people are pushed to the periphery where they are deprived of the social services which will alleviate their sufferings. This concept is related to the Weberian idea of

social closure where the powerful in society literary “lock-out’’ the down-trodden where resources are monopolised in their favour.

I argued that Inclusion and exclusion are like “Siamese twins’’ which are widely contested in the social sciences. Some scholars see these concepts as intricately linked such that they are two sides of the same coin (Woodward & Kohli 2007; Zerubavel 1993). This thesis shared in the thoughts of such authors that notwithstanding the fact that the North was considered as part of the Gold Coast, they were markedly neglected when it came to the provision of education and the total development of that area (exclusion here). However, when a policy was put in place to get them included, the challenges of the policy were creating some other forms inequalities therein, thereby making them to be “inside’’ and “outside’’ at the same time.

As already mentioned, the main theory that this thesis anchors on is Charles Tilly’s (1999) durable inequality. Tilly’s relational study of inequality speaks a lot to the inequality of education in this study. Thus, the regional educational inequality in Ghana is largely not coming from the differentials in skills, intelligence or other such human characteristics but the conceited institutional and social relationalities which saw the Northern part of the country at the downside of the divide. Durable inequalities refer to inequalities that are intractable and span between time and space and because of their prescriptive nature, it becomes difficult to surmount them. Thus, in order to overcome them, there is the need to dig deep to their very roots where you can decisively deal with them. It is shown here in this thesis that, these inequalities especially those in education occur in places where the share of the public goods in the form of the educational resources are consistently distributed inequitably over time.

In order to properly adapt Tilly’s theorisation of durable inequality and to relate it to the inequality of education in Ghana, I reviewed his causative factors of inequality which he calls mechanism of durable inequalities such as exploitation, opportunity hoarding, emulation and adaptation. Each of these concepts of Tilly were linked to education to show how inequality has been introduced as well as thrive to become

a persistent phenomenon in Ghana. In this thesis, Tilly’s concept of exploitation has been related to Dorling’s notion of “new elitism’’ which is brought about by the unequal distribution of educational resources (Dorling 2010: 36). As regards opportunity hoarding and its relatedness to education in Ghana, I pointed out that educational opportunities are rather hoarded by the elite which in Tilly’s claim, it is carried out by non-elites. However, this is not to suggest that Tilly (1999) implied that opportunity hoarding is done by only the non-elite but that this study is of a different context. It was argued that, rich parents do opportunity hoarding in order to get the good schools for their children. Thus, the best is meant for the children of the elite after which it will trickle down to the children of the none-elite.

Emulation and Adaptation have their functional roles in Charles Tilly’s durable inequality. Despite the fact that these concepts do not initiate categorical inequalities per se, they make the said inequality persistent. Tilly’s (1999) concept of Emulation which he explains that people behave with the experience of the hind side is related to Bourdieu’s (1984) concept of habitus where he claims that things we do are linked to our historical socialisation. In this light, I indicated that there is scripting in education in Ghana because there has been continual policy changes which are geared towards making the system better where some policies are copied and implemented in the educational sector which becomes a form of emulation.

The established practice where text scores are being used as means for progression in education has been queried in this study because there is largely no level playing ground for all school children. Some children come from well-endowed schools while their counterparts come from deprived schools. This orthodox practice of selection in education is what Tilly calls adaptation which makes the inequality in education persistent.