Class Formation and Civil Society: The Politics of Education in Africa (Making of Modern Africa)

This text compares field research from the capital cities of three African states to analyze how the decline of state-funded education and the appearance of private education is altering the composition of civil society. Specifically, urban elites have created an entire network of schools for their own use - under conditions of rapidly shrinking educational opportunity for the general population. Based on its analysis of field research in Cameroon, Kenya and Congo the book reaches the conclusion that schooling has increasingly become a force shaping the class-based civil societies emerging in contemporary Africa. It offers a theoretical perspective on civil society and class formation and synthesizes these in an approach which adapts its theoretical framework to account for changes in African states and societies.