Parenthood and Social Reproduction
Fostering and Occupational Roles in West Africa

In this book Dr Goody provides an account of the rich variety of institutions, such as fostering, apprenticeship and wardship, which have developed in West Africa.

Esther N. Goody (Author)

9780521040174, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 September 2007

368 pages
22.9 x 15.3 x 2.1 cm, 0.556 kg

Over the last twenty years, Esther Goody has made extensive studies of traditional and contemporary patterns of education and child-rearing in West Africa. In this book she provides an account of the rich variety of institutions, such as fostering, apprenticeship and wardship, which have developed in West Africa either in absence of, or alongside, formal schools, to prepare children for the wide range of economic and political roles now available to them in adult society. Drawing on her work in West Africa and with West Africans in London, Dr Goody shows that among many groups it is common practice to send children to grow up away from home. As a cross-cultural study of a central kinship institution - parenthood - and of processes of change in adult role allocation, the book is of interest to social anthropologists, sociologists, educationalists and social psychologists.

List of tables
List of figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. A framework for the analysis of parent roles
Part I. Parent Roles in Gonja: 2. Kinship fostering
3. The Kpembe study
Part II. Parent Roles in West Africa: 4. The circulation of women and children in northern Ghana with Jack Goody
5. Traditional states: responses to hierarchy and differentiation
6. Contemporary patterns in southern Ghana
7. Fostering contrasted
8. Modern apprenticeship: response to differentiation
9. Creole wardship: response to hierarchy
Part III. Beyond West Africa: 10. The quest for education with Christine Muir Groothues
11. West African and West Indian immigrant families
12. Parenthood and social reproduction
Appendix I: data from the Kpembe study
Appendix II: data on the southern Ghana surveys
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Index of authors.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]