Ibrahim, Anyars Imoro (2018) The relevance of local context to the global phenomenon of early childhood education: case study of the northern region of Ghana. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

Early childhood care and development (ECCD) as a global phenomenon has become integral to the Ghanaian educational system: especially since the 2004 Policy. Global meanings attached to ECCD programmes while characteristically dependent on Western notions of childhood and child rearing have dominated the terrain of early childhood education. As a result, local exemplars show increasing isomorphism with the templates from the developed world; albeit incongruously in certain instances in the Ghanaian case. This study applied a mixed methods approach through a case study methodology: using a survey (preceding case selection), interviews, observations, focus groups, and documents. Mainly, the research entail perceptions of 49 local stakeholders: children, parents, teaching staff, and key stakeholder informants; in a multiple case study set within the Northern Region of Ghana.

The case study revealed crucial issues that border on contextual relevance of global ECCD and local incapacity to contextualise the phenomenon within Ghana’s socio-cultural and historical realities. Moreover, entrenched developing world dependency on the developed world effectively stultified such contextual provision. Therefore, the Ghanaian case study exemplified capitulation to influences from the developed world: resulting in disjunctions at the realms of policy, provision and practice. A clear instantiation of this is the unravelled ambivalent positions that characterised stakeholder attitudes and perceptions: often insinuating both congruence and divergence on the Global–Local ECCD scene. While they perceived excessive dependence on imported global educational practices; they equally articulated divergently stances antithetical to the incorporation of the local culture and lived realities of children. Significantly, many questions remain and call for future research: in particular the effects of ECCD as conceived in the Ghanaian context on the future schooling trajectories of children.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1501 Primary Education
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Early childhood education -- Ghana -- Case studies, Early childhood education -- Ghana -- Western influences, Education and state -- Ghana
Official Date:	November 2018
Dates:	Date Event November 2018 UNSPECIFIED
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Centre for Education Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Wyness, Michael G.
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	345 leaves : illustrations
Language:	eng

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