Ethnic, national, and African consciousness: lessons learned from Ghanaian teachers about decolonising citizenship(s)

ABSTRACT

Redefining Ghanaian citizenship has been the impetus for the new 2019 educational reform. For President Akufo-Addo, fostering a more located historic expression of citizenship in learners is central for renewing pride and innovation to move Ghana out of poverty. Teachers are seen as central to this change. Based on 26 interviews, this qualitative study explores lessons learned from government primary schoolteachers about citizenship, in relation to their learners. Primarily, their Ghanaian citizenship(s) was an interdependent definition covering their ethnic, national, and (Black) African consciousness. Inspired by the Pan-African theorist, Kwame Nkrumah, the definition was articulated as ‘Oneness;’ an African relational ontology for seeking unity in difference to disinherit colonialism. This was grounded in ‘Rootedness,’ symbiotic with how teachers located their learners’ ethnic identities and differences through indigeneity. A conceptual model for decolonising citizenship(s) is presented, offering praxis within and beyond the African classroom, highlighting Ghana’s role in the decolonial project.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizenship
• Ghana
• ethnicity
• primary education
• decolonising

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the anonymous reviewers for their detailed and insightful feedback and Prof. Michele Schweisfurth, University of Glasgow, and Dr Robert Aman, Linköping University for their invaluable support throughout this research, as my PhD.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The intellectual genealogy of (Black) African consciousness was not distinct to Nkrumah. Its ideology was central to political movements during this era, including Negritude, Garveyism, and the Black Consciousness Movement (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2020).

2. The 2019 Year of Return was a government initiative to encourage African diasporans to obtain dual citizenship. It commemorated 400 years since the first enslaved Africans landed in Jamestown in the United States of America.

Additional information

Funding

The fieldwork for this PhD research was undertaken with funding from BAICE (British Association for International and Comparative Education), granted through the Student Fieldwork Grant 2019. Without their financial support, this research would not have been possible.