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Teaching Culture: Thoughts from Northern Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2009

Trevor Wiggins
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Abstract

This article considers ideas and issues raised by an examination of the function of education, particularly music education in Ghana. There are many musical traditions in Ghana that the people want to pass on to the younger generation. How are these to be taught or learned? Where are the duties and boundaries of formal education to be drawn? What can be expected of parents and family? What is the situation for the teacher, given that few teachers return to their native area after training at a centralised institution? The article is based around an interview with the Paramount Chief (Naa) Puoure Puobe Chiir VII of Nandom in the Upper West Region of Ghana. He is one of twenty-five members of the National Council of State of Ghana (a non-elected Upper Chamber) and, as mentioned in the interview, vice-president of the National House of Chiefs and Chairman of its Research Committee.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , July 1998 , pp. 201 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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