ABSTRACT
ANY examination of the impact of Western educational institutions on African societies presupposes an analysis of traditional social structures. This is a task which the educational sociologist approaches with some diffidence, since even the smallest contemporary African political units constitute a bewildering cultural and linguistic mixture. Nonetheless, such an examination is essential as a starting point for analysis. The functional incorporation of western institutions can only be understood in terms of their effect upon traditional concepts of status and social differentiation and other aspects of social structure. The following discussion will largely ignore indigenous processes of education since they are only of limited importance in examining the roles of western schools. The primary task is to indicate the basic uniformities underlying the varying types of political and social structure which existed in Ghana before the extension of effective European control. In ‘traditional society’ in this part of Africa it is possible to point to certain structural uniformities which underlay most indigenous social systems without attempting a total ethnographic summary of each group.
