Feminist Knowledge | Education/Higher Education

Gender, Access to Learning and the Production of Knowledge in Africa
by N'Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba (Cornell University, Ithaca, New York & CEPARRED, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire)

This article was first published by AAWORD in Visions of Gender Theories and Social Development in Africa: Harnessing Knowledge for Social Justice and Equality: 2001.

Introduction

The social space for learning and the production of knowledge in indigenous African contexts have historically been defined and organised in terms of gender and other socially significant factors such as age and socio-economic status. This organisation has been at the basis of both pre-colonial societies and rural or less westernised societies with limited presence of European-style formal education in the post-colonial period. It should be stated that the gender-based organisation of indigenous African education does not imply inequality. The education for females and males has been conceived and organised as different but equal in their social worth. In contrast, the philosophy and practical organisation of the contemporary inherited western formal education system has been based on the principle of a single, gender-neutral, and co-educational space for learning and knowledge production. However, a number of factors have created systems that are de facto unequal, with the female population being disadvantaged in terms of simple access, results and outcome.

Since the political independence of most African countries in the 1950s and 60s, education has been considered both a basic human right and an investment in human resources for socio-economic development. With regard to gender, policy-makers have emphasised a commitment to equal access. In order for women to participate in the production of knowledge used for policy formulation, however, it is important to address not only the question of equal access, but also success and equal representation at all levels of the system, including higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse some implications of the persisting under-representation of the female population in education with specific reference to women's limited participation in knowledge production. Here it should be stressed that "relevant" knowledge is produced by various social categories, including populations with little or no experience of formal education. For example, many women who are not formally educated in European educational systems produce socially valued knowledge in ethics and responsibility or science and management. These are used to guide social, cultural and economic activities in a variety of areas including agriculture, trade, family management, health care provision, and so forth. It should also be indicated that, as many scholars demonstrate, women in Africa have historically participated in knowledge production at the highest and most complex intellectual levels (see Hilliard, 1998 and Hountondji, 1997).

Formal education of European origin, however, plays a major role in policy-making in post-colonial societies. This is because the leadership, which produces administrators, intellectual and technical cadres and policy-makers, is formally educated in this inherited system, especially at the higher education level. This paper therefore focuses on higher education within the inherited system, although it acknowledges a holistic educational framework and recognises indigenous educational systems as legitimate daily spaces for knowledge production. The emphasis on formal higher education is consequently not a negation of local learning and knowledge.

The paper is in part based on a conceptual analysis of educational development in Africa focusing on the upper level of the systems and on women's participation in the production of knowledge. The first section presents some conceptual discussion of education and knowledge production in general and a history of the contemporary situation in Africa. The second section addresses the current educational distribution along gender lines. The third section discusses more specifically the question of African women's role in the production of knowledge.

Education and Production of Knowledge

Gender is a universal ground for social differentiation that cuts across all other social categories and variables. The overall state of equality of educational opportunity in any given society is determined by the access of men and women to education, and their chances of completing their education.

Education, as a social institution whose main function is to transmit technical skills, values and norms, is in essence conservative, whether its function is viewed as natural according to functionalist theory or as socially engineered according to different forms of conflict theory. The classical functionalist theory formulated by theorists such as Emile Durkheim, argues that "in functional terms", there is a natural and universal stratification of society, and members of society are potentially capable of playing different roles according to their social positions. One of the main functions of education as a social institution, the argument goes, is to facilitate the process of sorting out individuals and groups according to their natural ability to learn the differently valued skills that lead them to specific occupations and positions and to perform different activities in society. Meritocracy is an underlying assumption of functionalist theory; it assumes that selection is fair and effective in sorting people out according to their merit.

In terms of the logic of these arguments, intellectuals and other members of society who take part in the production of knowledge are selected on the basis of their natural abilities. When this theoretical reasoning is used, it can be argued that those who produce knowledge fulfil a social function that is in principle complementary to other occupational categories, with the theory being based on a perception of society in permanent equilibrium. In this sense, intellectual production is considered a public good.

The various versions of conflict theory, on the other hand, claim that education is an instrument of social reproduction that mirrors the stratification and inequality of society. It is used by the dominant class to legitimise its privileges and to perpetuate the oppression and marginalisation of certain groups by socialising them to accept their conditions and the status quo as natural. In this context, the production of knowledge is an instrument to dominate and control those who, given the structurally unequal system of selection, do not participate in it. Those who produce and determine its use only legitimise their privileges. Formal education becomes cultural capital that is transmitted to the inheritors of the privileged dominant social class (see Bourdieu and Passeron, 1979). According to this theoretical framework, knowledge production is neither neutral nor beneficial for the entire society.

There are various forms and mechanisms as well as agents of knowledge production. In the educational systems within the Western traditions inherited by African countries (see Ashby, 1964), systems of education are essentially elitist: they value elite intellectual knowledge as opposed to the production of knowledge by the masses. Given the dominance of this tradition in the social processes of African countries, it is important to ask to what extent women have been and are likely to be participating in this socially determinant activity. To address this question, it is important, first, to define who the intellectuals are, and then to identify the location of women in that category.

Intellectuals have been defined as people who are associated, through their educational experience, with higher education learning (Lumumba-Kasongo, 2000). They constitute several categories, which, for the purpose of this article, can be grouped in three major sets. One category consists of what has been labelled as "classical intellectuals". They are composed of professional thinkers who have historically devoted their time to contemplation (for example, monks from the medieval to the contemporary period). Their intellectual activity is often disconnected from any particular social context or activity. Rather, it involves reflecting esoterically on human and social experience and the world in abstraction. Their activity is therefore often contrasted diametrically with practical work, manual labour, etc.

This situation defines the context in which many contemporary European higher learning institutions were created. Because of the deliberate and de facto disconnection of much intellectual activity from society, intellectual production was linked to the notion of the "ivory tower", with intellectuals and thinkers (by the Middle Ages, located mainly in churches) who did not directly connect - or perceive the importance of connecting - their intellectual work to the socio-economic needs of the larger social environment. In France, for example, the church had a tight control over higher learning and academic endeavours. It was only towards the fifteenth century, and specifically by the Renaissance and the Reformation, that the state, through a secularisation scheme, intensified its struggle to unsettle the near-monopoly of the church's authority over the school system. In this struggle between church and state, the church adopted a new strategy, which consisted of empowering new religious congregations such as the Jesuits and the Oratorians to tighten their grip over the system of academic production. This provided the basis for the church to define the educational and social goals of the educational system and its corresponding curriculum, criteria of evaluation and selection (Assié, 1982).

In accordance with some church dogmas, women were excluded from the intellectual forum, production of knowledge, and policymaking. While many European institutions have been greatly transformed to address some of the issue of historical and structural gender imbalance, African universities, even those that were created after independence, still share traditional European socio-historical features because they were modelled after the old Western traditions.

The second category of intellectuals has been called "organic intellectuals". They constitute the self-appointed vanguards, those who consider themselves as having a social mission in terms of their systematic commitment to the cause of the entire society. They have distinct statuses and roles in relation to the rest of the population. Their educational achievement is one basis for their distinctiveness. In many cases, they can also be differentiated on the basis of ascriptive factors, such as social origins that facilitate their access to and success in the selective and elitist systems of education. Despite, these objective social differences, they view themselves as having a social mission. They consider it an important duty to use their privileged position to promote social change for the entire society.

The third category of intellectuals is composed of career-oriented intellectuals. The guiding ethos of these intellectuals is individualism and the sometimes selfish pursuit of career geared to their personal gains. They seldom analyse the global, social and community/local factors that play a significant role in their academic promotion. In terms of a functionalist tradition, their individual attributes and hard work are considered to be the sole explanatory factors of their privileged position. Although these intellectuals think and act in individualistic ways, they may fulfil family obligations in Africa, where, despite the extensive Westernisation of society, African family values still strongly govern social relations. However, these intellectuals do not feel that they are indebted to the masses, and their actions are not guided by any commitment to broader society.

The last category of intellectuals is not necessarily involved in any consistent participation in intellectual production. They use their educational achievement to participate in activities that guarantee their economic survival and the maintenance of a certain standard of life above that of the masses. They may not even recognise the importance of intellectual production in the first place. Either by necessity or by absence of consciousness of the role that intellectual production plays in society, they do not tend to take an active part in intellectual production and direction, and consider intellectual activities, decision-making, policy-design, etc., as purely technical exercises.

Given the above consideration of intellectuals, it is important in the context of African societies to ask what the process of selecting - along gender lines - those who qualify as members of the social categories that produce intellectual knowledge is. This qualification is determined by level of education in terms of the period of schooling, and more specifically, by access to and completion of higher education. It is also measured by diplomas, the types of institutions attended, the fields of study, occupations and so forth. Consideration of these factors must lead us to ask: What is the representation of women in learning at the higher education level? Whose and what knowledge is learned and for whose benefit?

Higher Education Distribution by Gender

The Addis Ababa Conference on educational needs for Africa, held in 1961, led to resolutions enthusiastically adopted by African Ministers and their representatives. These were that there should be specific targets for increased enrolment at the secondary and post-secondary levels, and that universal, free and compulsory primary schooling was a duty and reachable goal by the 1980s. However, what are the gendered components of the policy-making that followed these resolutions?

Available statistics consistently indicate that, with the exception of some southern African cases, the common pattern of educational distribution in Africa is characterised by under-representation of eligible female populations. The gender gap widens from the lower to the upper levels of the educational systems, and there is a relatively low proportion of female students in universities, particularly at graduate level, in African institutions and especially abroad. It should be emphasised that the achievement of the stated goals of gender parity in enrolment at the tertiary level, at least in terms of numbers, during the two decades following the independence of the majority of African countries, was noticeable, despite the persistent gap (see UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1997).

A complex set of historical, economic, cultural, political and legal factors contributed to create gender inequalities in education with the inception of the colonial formal educational system in Africa. The supply and demand aspects of African education have been influenced by both external and local factors. In the colonial context, supply was entirely controlled by the colonial administration. The interests and cultural values of the Europeans constituted the determining factors in the provision of education. A central guiding principle here was the need for education that would provide the technical skills and shape the attitudinal dispositions of Africans that prepared them to work acquiescently towards colonial goals. To effectively deal with this need, until the period that followed World War II, colonial law and policies did not allow Africans to have access to post-elementary /middle-school education.

In limited education designed for the colonised before World War II, the female population was particularly excluded, and became the recipients of socially less valued and domestic-oriented education often provided by missionaries. Indeed, the European concept of the social and economic value of women's education in general, and specifically in the colonies, determined their policy of educational facilities for boys and girls. While internal factors have been historically important in redefining agendas that shape educational needs in Africa, it is worth recalling that, even after independence, the supply side of education in Africa has been continuously influenced by external powers through bilateral and multilateral agencies.

Despite the educational agendas and policies of the colonial powers, Africans heavily influenced the demand side of education. The perceived and actual interests in the development of European education in Africa led Africans first to reject, later to reluctantly accept, and then to fully embrace a policy of educational expansion at independence. As I have argued elsewhere (Assie-Lumumba, 1997), Africa's predominantly male decision-makers failed to redress entrenched inequalities in education. Indeed, contemporary factors have compounded the historical roots of unequal education on the basis of gender. With a few exceptions in southern Africa, formal education in African countries is characterised by low female enrolment, retention, and completion rates at all levels.

Undertaking educational reform after independence became a symbol of freedom and self-determination. All African countries have had some experiences with educational reform. Some countries, particularly those which went through armed struggle for decolonisation or through post-colonial revolution, questioned their educational systems radically and sooner after independence than those which acquired independence through negotiation. Yet statistics show that gender inequality has not been significantly and systematically addressed, and that the gap persists especially at the higher learning levels. This paper goes on to explore some consequences of continued imbalances in the production of knowledge.

African Women and the Production of Knowledge

It has been argued that education is conservative in essence and can be an instrument of social reproduction. However, when analysed in a global historical context, education cannot be reduced to a simple instrument that preserves the existing social order. In reality, it is a double-edged sword that can be used by the dominant class to play a conservative role, but that can also be deployed by those who want to change the social order. It has the potential and capacity to generate intellectual challenges, to create new societies, to uncover different dynamics, and to open up value systems that may fundamentally question the existing social order. Education, in fact, has two attributes: reproduction and also the production of unplanned, unexpected, and even undesirable effects. While it is supposed to play the conservative role of reproducing the social order, it can also create critical minds. Although it is supposed to socialise the oppressed and marginalised into apathy and acceptance of the existing social order, it may create challenging and even revolutionary minds. This is, in fact, what occurred in African colonised societies: in terms of a general colonial practice, Africans were denied access to higher education that led to "thinking", the formation of critical minds and the production of knowledge. Yet, what they learned even through the curriculum subjected to severe "cultural Malthusianism" (see Ki-Zerbo, 1972) became a powerful instrument used by the new African leaders in the colonial resistance movement.

The new driving force in the struggle for decolonisation in the 1940s was the combined effort of African local and diasporic human resources and international support. Although very few were formally educated, those who were played a determining role in the articulation of the demand for freedom and unconditional independence. The handful of formally educated Africans, in defiance of their colonial masters and the philosophy of the general colonial administration and policy of education, played a leading role that was in contradiction to what the system had set schools up to produce.

The educational policies that carefully sought to create docile African subjects who would essentially defend the interest of the colonial powers ended up creating fighters against the foundation of the colonial institution. It is of course true that many values transmitted to the Africans through formal education fulfilled the agendas of the colonial powers. However, the unexpected and unintended role of creating critical and subversive minds steadily emerged and neutralised some of the immediate goals of social control prioritised by colonial education.

The question of gender in relation to the production of knowledge can be compared with this historical situation. Women are disadvantaged in the new system, and yet those who make it through the system can, instead of contributing to reproducing the unequal system, challenge it. Women in organisations such as AAWORD and the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) are playing this role by demanding equal access irrespective of their low representation within a small emerging intellectual elite at the time of independence. Despite their determination, their relatively small numbers have been translated into low representation in key positions in decision-making/planning in the economy, education, and knowledge production. In addition to under-representation, fundamental questions related to philosophy and politics of education are important. How can a critical mass of African women be fully aware and capable of articulating and actualising the need for "epistemological vigilance" (Mudimbe, 1988) in the production of knowledge?

In an annotated bibliography, Mere Kisekka (1983) points out that research in Africa and on Africans has historically been undertaken by non-Africans. This has been especially true in research on African women. In 1982, AAWORD organised a seminar, among several others, on "Research on African Women: what type of methodology?" At this meeting, a number of papers, later published, were delivered by African women researchers. They reiterated the need, as stated in AA WORD's constitution "to reveal, reinstate and emphasise the presence of women throughout history and in all cultural, social, economic and political process of change".

In her paper, entitled "Une approche méthodologique critique du problème de l'assymétrie sexuelle", for this seminar, Alya Bafoun drew the attention of Third World researchers, particularly women and specifically African women to "the limitations found in the epistemology and fundamental theory of social science elaborated by Westerners and men", and stressed that in the context of conventional colonisation as well as neo-colonialism, "dependent people are studied as objects." She insisted that women are objectified to an especially high degree. Filomena Steady, in her paper on "Research Methodology and Investigative Frameworks for Social Change: the Case of the African Women", argued that "for most part methodology [developed by the Europeans and the West in general] has had a negative influence and disruptive effect on African systems of knowledge, science, technology, art, production, reproduction, etc."

The different participants in the seminar agreed that although much of the literature generated by Europeans is "tainted, biased or incomplete", it still "sustained a process of economic exploitation, under-development, and inequality. European interests in conceptual orientations, perspectives, methodologies, and research tools that reinforced unequal relations". In the system of double oppression under colonial rule and legacy, the majority of African women have been severely marginalised. Helis Lucas' "Science Africaine, science féministe: problème épistémologique et techniques" highlighted many other participants' concern with the question of legitimacy. Several discussions on the specific case of South Africa addressed theoretical issues related to historiography and the re-conceptualisation of resistance in terms of a gender perspective. The participants recognised that "challenging established methodologies does not automatically imply strength and accuracy of new methods." The rigour, ethics, and social responsibility of research were also questioned in the established scholarship.

African women researchers in general, and especially AAWORD members, have been urged to contribute concretely in their research endeavours to the realisation of the seminar's objectives. During a workshop on gender-focused research organised by AAWORD in Arusha (Tanzania) in November 1993, the participants expressed very high needs regarding the availability of relevant information and research on African experiences, with a well-deserved place for African women.

In 1991, the Council for the Development of Economic and Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) organised a seminar, which led to the publication of the 1996 book, edited by Ayesha Imam, Amina Mama, and Fatou Sow, Engendering African Social Sciences in both English and French versions. The meeting brought together an impressive group of African women as subjects and agents of research. The book covers a wide range of key issues including conceptual, epistemological and methodological questions relevant to gender and women: questions about historiography, economics with an emphasis on agrarian economy, psychology, issues of gender equity in education, concerns about culture and health challenges. There was a call for women's increased and active participation in conceiving gendered paradigms that provide the grounds for productive and meaningful linkage between theory and praxis in promoting socio-economics progress. Key conceptual, theoretical and epistemological questions were discussed and in case studies many important subjects and questions were addressed.

In her introduction to the book, Gender in Southern Africa: Conceptual and Theoretical Issues, Ruth Meena, as editor of the book, indicates that at a gender Planning Workshop organised by the Southern Africa Political Economy Series (SAPES) in 1991, "the need to redefine gender and clarify conceptual issues and perspectives was underscored by all participants" (Meena, 1991). Ruth Meena calls upon African scholars to challenge mainstream scholarship that ignores the views of more than half of the population, meaning women's views. By way of introduction to the Southern African perspective, she adds that female and male scholars must "take the initiative in deconstructing mainstream knowledge in order to produce a more balanced view, which will provide a broader understanding of the forces which continue to oppress women and men of this region" (1991).

The need for broadening the knowledge base stems from the right of the women to express their views. Furthermore, Meena argues, it has become imperative to re-examine the "issues of objectivity and subjectivity" because "mainstream knowledge which guided development strategies in previous decades, has failed to provide lasting solutions to the problems of poverty and under-development." In her article published in the book entitled "Gender Research/Studies in Southern Africa: an overview", she adds that "women have had no significant input in the development thinking and indeed in the development process in this region" (1991:1).

Despite the demands and interests generated both among women in research networks and by isolated researchers, the reality is that the proportion of women in higher education is very small. Of those who do undergo higher education, few are involved in knowledge production. Many use their time to strategise and work for survival, having to cope with the detrimental effects of the policies of gender-blind policymakers and their advisors. While some, such as market-women, traders and farmers, rely on some forms of knowledge to undertake their activities, their informal but socially valuable knowledge does not inform the dossiers and discussion tables of policy-makers. As providers for their families, most are forced to deal with the impacts of the policies adopted by policymakers.

Thus, to work constructively towards a permanent presence of women in the learning and production of knowledge that can give direction toward social development, we need to ask some of the fundamental questions that were identified earlier and are summarised below. Responses to these questions will contribute to building the foundation of meaningful, as opposed to token or symbolic, representation. Knowledge is universal, and all people everywhere participate in knowledge production. However, it is important to ask some key questions, including the following:

· Are the elements that constitute knowledge universal? If this is not the case, then what criteria and whose criteria are used to identify knowledge and judge the qualifications of people to have access to it, to master it and to make use of it?

· How is knowledge related to the ethos of different societies and cultures?

· Is the process of acquiring knowledge the same or similar everywhere?

· For what purpose and in whose benefits is knowledge acquired by individuals and groups, males and females?

In its distribution and use in relation to Africans in general and particularly to women, formal education that is supposed to provide knowledge has served as an instrument of exploitation and marginalisation. Given the magnitude of the gender gap, there is need for a vigorous policy and conscious efforts to increase the number of women in educational institutions and as producers of intellectual knowledge. Equally important, or maybe more so, is the need to rebuild the foundation of the system in which we want women to acquire equal status, recognition, and qualification for participation in the production of knowledge.

Conclusion

Reacting to social policies such as Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) is important but will not radically address fundamental problems. Social policies are based on constructed theories. For example, SAPs are based on neo-classical and modernisation theories. To build the foundation for reconstruction and effectively building the future of Africa, we will need to present alternative theories and solid research results that can be used to design new policies that meet the needs of the people. Building the foundation while reacting to current policies that are defined externally and/or adopted by powerless and selfish leaders is key.

It would be misleading to perceive academic research as unnecessary , irrelevant or not worthy of the time and resources allocated. It is important also to warn against arguments that assume the "natural roles" of African women and make them automatically more responsive to the current conservative ideas about social needs. Since women are included in fairly large numbers of the dominant educational systems, the philosophy of conservative education can impact negatively on them. Generally, however, many Africans are likely to fall into the category that looks for immediate and local solutions to globally engineered development problems. Thus, the effect of the transformative dimensions of education may be too minimal to help make significant steps towards promoting social progress on the continent.

African women's access to learning and knowledge production must be related to their substantive and qualitative presence in an educational system that values knowledge relevant to the African context, not the context constructed by specialists who remain ignorant of the actual needs of the population. Knowledge produced by African women must be relevant to African social conditions, and not simplistically address the quest for simple parity. The appropriation of knowledge must be perceived as a social good that can be used to propose alternative policies. More active participation of more African women and the challenging of the nature and relevance of knowledge must be dialectically linked.

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