Remapping citizenship: Relationships between education levels and ethnonational identities in Côte d’Ivoire,Ghana,and Liberia

Abstract

This article investigates the relationships between ethnonational identity and educational level in three West African contexts: Liberia, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. Citizens in these neighboring countries identify with overlapping ethnic groups, but have varied historical experiences, with Americans settling in Liberia; the British colonizing Ghana, and the French colonizing Côte d’Ivoire. In the recent era, Côte d’Ivoire elected an opposition leader at the end of its civil war in 2010; Ghana is considered as the most stable democracy in West Africa; and Liberia experienced two protracted conflicts over the past 30 years and completed its first peaceful transition of power in 2017. We analyze 2014 Afrobarometer data from these three countries to consider if respondents are more likely to value local identities, national identities, or equally value both in each context, and how these valuations vary according to schooling experiences and national context. The findings do not show a linear relationship between education and civic identity, as more respondents who completed only primary school identified primarily with ther national group than those who completed secondary school. Most respondents who completed graduate study in all three countries identified with both their national and ethnic group; none identified primarily with their ethnic groups. In addition, the trends in identity and schooling in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are more similar to each other than to Liberia.

Keywords

education ethnicity identity nationalism secondary data analysis West Africa

Introduction

In exploring the relationships among citizenship, identity, and democratic education, one must consider the ways in which these phenomena vary across societies. Citizenship, identity, and formal schooling are intertwined both conceptually and in practice: most government-sponsored school systems seek to create an individual citizen with particular skills and dispositions (Boli and Ramirez, 1992). Taking on the identity of a schooled person builds students’ alignment with national culture (Levinson et al., 1996) and lowers levels of ethnic chauvinism (Coenders and Scheepers, 2003)—indeed, in West Africa, increasing levels of formal schooling have been associated with increasing identification with (Agyeman, 1988) and participation in (Bleck, 2015) the nation-state. In many cases, national-level student civic participation has led to political change, as the activism of university students is seen as particularly responsible for the demise of dictators in African countries in the 1990s (Bratton and Van de Walle, 1997). However, this process is neither linear nor uncontested: Banks (2017) points out the need for nested citizenship incorporating ethnic identities within national and global spheres; schools can also be a space for building ethnic solidarity movements (Luykx, 1999) and national identities may be more tied to material concerns than schooling experiences (Ngarachu, 2015).

This article investigates these relationships in three West African societies: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Liberia. In these contexts, nationhood and education are both colonial and settler creations (Willinsky, 1998) as well as structures of political resistance, as elites from excluded groups gained access to educational institutions over time, and used national identity as a means to advocate for expanded rights. Citizens in these three neighboring countries come from similar or related ethnic groups, but the nation-states had varied historical experiences, with the French colonizing Côte d’Ivoire, the British colonizing Ghana, and African Americans settling in Liberia. Recent histories are also varied: in the past 20 years, both Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia experienced civil conflict, while Ghana has never experienced armed internal conflict as a nation-state, has been a democracy since 1994, and underwent its first peaceful transfer of power between ruling parties in 2001. Although international educational studies exist to help understand how schooling can act as an influence on civic action and identity, none of these studies include African countries (Schulz et al., 2018). Therefore, in order to investigate relationships among schooling and identity in these focus countries, we draw on an available international survey of adults: the Afrobarometer survey, a continental survey using random selection methods with probability proportionate to the population size of each country.

In this article, we analyze the 2014 round of Afrobarometer data to investigate the relationships between civic identities and education in these three neighboring countries. We use this data to test two hypotheses: first, that increasing levels of formal education are associated with higher percentages of respondents identifying with the nation-state than with their ethnic group across societies; second, that citizens of countries who have experienced ethnicity-involved conflict identify more highly with their ethnic group than with their nation across levels of education. Although citizens’ national and ethnic identities are feelings rather than pure indications of actions, political theorists note that in contemporary African studies, ethnic identity is positively correlated with the incidence and intensity of civil conflict (Jiang, 2018), despite the convergence of political and private rationales for conflict (Kalyvas, 2003). Although this article investigates associations rather than causation, we are considering associations between national and ethnic identities’ and education with the understanding that increasing levels of national identification may be indicative of increased social cohesion and stability in contemporary African societies.

Ethnicity and nationalism

Ethnicity and nationalism are both ideological tools that can be mobilized to bring people together to pursue common goals of peace, stability, and development; call for revolutionary actions and war in order to fight a group injustice; or to dehumanize or oppress those outside of one’s group (Smith, 1994). Across continents, the relationships among nationhood and ethnicity vary in their history and practical implications: in Africa, few conflicts have involved two independent nation-states (Mazrui, 1986; Thies, 2006), and thus nationalism in the African context is often conceptualized as a harbinger of peace and democracy, rather than the exclusionary discourse seen elsewhere, such as in the recent European conflicts in the Balkans or between Russia and Ukraine (Kohn, 2005; Wodak and Boukala, 2015). Negative political consequences of ethnic orientation in African contexts may be because colonial rule supported authoritarian tendencies in local government systems, and institutionally enforced tensions between people of varying ethnicities. Although the nation-state was deracialized after independence, it was not democratized (Mamdani, 1996). The arbitrary creation of nation-states by European countries in Africa resulted in multiethnic nation-states, and ethnic groups split across national boundaries; thus, most African nations are multiethnic (Rodney, 2018).

Drawing on data from the Afrobarometer surveys across all available countries, Ali et al., 2019 suggest that colonial configurations have implications for societies today, as citizens in former Anglophone colonies are more likely to attach importance to ethnic identity, have weaker norms against tax evasion, and experience extortion by non-state actors than citizens in former Francophone colonies. Ethnic division and conflicts in a society are associated with civil conflicts, slow economic growth, and weak state capacity and service provision, although causality among these phenomena is unclear (Alesina and La Ferrara, 2005; Easterly and Levine, 1997). Again, in African contexts, stronger levels of nationalism are associated with higher levels of societal peace and cooperation: in a comparison of Tanzania and Kenya, Miguel (2004) demonstrates higher interethnic cooperation in Tanzania than in Kenya, and argues that this is due to a stronger national identity in Tanzania, based on postcolonial policies of Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania. Nyerere notably focused on developing a Tanzanian and pan-African national identity, promoting the use of Swahili in the newly independent Tanzania, after Tanzania gained its independence (Blommaert, 2014; Fouéré, 2014; Ibhawoh and Dibua, 2003). Thus, although both nationalism and ethnicity can serve as tools of both inclusion and exclusion, scholars often consider nationalism to be a more inclusive framework in the context of postcolonial Africa than ethnicity.

Nationalism and education in Africa

In education, most national-level policies are designed to increase national unity via citizenship education and a common language of instruction (Wainaina et al., 2011). However, given the varying levels of equity in education for the members of minority ethnic groups in some societies, education focused on nationalism without minority recognition often marginalizes students from particular ethnic groups (Mulimbi and Dryden-Peterson, 2018; Sefa Dei, 2005). Theorists working in postconflict contexts note that education for peacebuilding should address questions of redistribution, recognition, representation, and reconciliation in order to support both justice and peace for different ethnic and other groups in a society (Novelli et al., 2015).

Across 16 nations participating in Round 3 of the 2008 Afrobarometer surveys, data show that identification with the nation increases alongside education, urbanization, formal employment, and state-level economic development (Robinson, 2014). Other analyses also suggest that increasing levels of education are associated with increasing support for democracy, although the effect of schooling is weak compared with other aspects of modernization (Evans and Rose, 2012). These analyses did not include Cote D’Ivoire or Liberia, two of our three focus countries, as they were experiencing civil conflict at the time of the study. Because the above analyses did not take into consideration the historical context at the country level in connecting national identity and education, in this article we consider how the relationships between identity and education vary across three purposefully chosen societies with varied histories of settlement or colonization and conflict. Drawing on the above-mentioned quantitative and qualitative data in studies in Mali (Bleck, 2015), Mexico (Levinson et al., 1996), and Ghana (Agyeman, 1988), in addition to macro-analyses of Afrobarometer data, we hypothesize that there will be a positive association between education and national identification in all the three cases included here.

Country contexts

The three focus countries in this article are contiguous countries in West Africa, with varying historical and contemporary experiences: Côte D’Ivoire, Ghana, and Liberia. Although each was colonized or settled by France, Britain, and America, respectively, they share ethnic groups across borders. In the early independence period, each had an influential leader: in Côte D’Ivoire, Félix Houphouët-Boigny became prime minister in 1959, then served as a president from 1960 to 1993, leading a one-party state (Dozon, 2000). In Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah served as the prime minister from 1957 to 1960, and then as president from 1960 to 1966, when he was overthrown in a military coup; the heads of state in Ghana changed eight times between 1966 and 1981 (Boafo-Arthur, 2008). In contrast, Liberia existed as an independent nation since 1847, led by the original Americo-Liberian settlers: during the independence period, president William V.S. Tubman led a one-party state from 1944 to 1971, during which he also expanded the rights of local peoples (Liebenow, 1987). Below, we provide additional demographic and educational information, as well as histories of recent conflict, to allow for a nuanced comparison among the three contexts.

Côte d’Ivoire

Côte d’Ivoire is a nation of 24 million people, including 8 million non-citizens, migrant residents from other countries in the region. Roughly one-third of current citizens belong to the Akan ethnic groups, with Voltaique, Mande, and Kru also strongly represented among Ivorian nationals. The country is roughly divided into a Christian south and a Muslim northern region; conflicts between the groups had been suppressed during Houphouët-Boigny’s presidency. In the wake of Houphouët-Boigny’s death and succession of another party member, Konan Bedie, to the presidency, a law was passed requiring both parents of a presidential candidate to be born within Côte d’Ivoire, excluding the Northern candidate Alassane Ouattara, who was popular among immigrant agricultural workers (Dozon, 2000). In response, northerners in the military led a coup; when the appointed head of state, Robert Gueï, was killed the following year, this expanded into civil conflict between the rebel groups and the Southern-elected president, Laurent Gbagbo (Sany, 2010). A ceasefire in 2003 held for a number of years, with Ouattara, now the opposition leader, becoming the prime minister in the Gbagbo government. After Alassane Ouattara won the first presidential election after the conflict in 2010, Laurent Gbagbo refused to resign, leading to 5 months of conflict; Ouattara supporters, helped by the French and US forces, forced Gbagbo from office. The country has thus only been rebuilding from identity-based violent conflict since 2011 (CIA, n.d.).

A French colony from 1893 to 1960, Côte d’Ivoire was known in the region as an intentional multiethnic society under the rule of Houphouët-Boigny, an example of tolerance and economic success obtained by the labor and skills of diverse communities, many of whom migrated from neighboring countries (Dembele, 2003). However, current migrant residents do not have citizenship status, and the resolution of national identity amid ethnic, religious, territorial, and citizenship status differences is one of the key issues for reunification (Bah, 2012). Net enrollment ratios are 67% for young boys in primary school and 55.8% for young girls in primary school. In secondary school, the net enrollment ratios are 33.1% for young men and 24.6% for young women. The youth literacy rates are 72.3% for young men and 62.7% for young women (aged 15–24) (UNICEF, 2018). Since 1983, Civic and Moral Education (Education Civique et Morale) had been incorporated as a primary subject in school. To respond to the conflict and to promote social cohesion, there were pilots of a peace education course in 2003–2004; in 2012, Civic and Moral Education was fully replaced by a course on human rights and citizenship entitled ‘Education aux Droits de l’Homme et à la Citoyenneté’ (EDHC) (Kuppens and Langer, 2015).

Ghana

Ghana is a nation of 27.5 million people, with one-third of the population from Akan ethnic groups, like Côte d’Ivoire, and the other major groups including Ewe, Brong, Dagomba, Hausa, and Ga-Dangme. A total of 70% of the country is Christian, 17.6% Muslim, and 5% animist (CIA, n.d.). Since independence from British administration in 1957, the country has never experienced nationwide armed conflict, and has undergone three peaceful transitions of power since the 1990s (Boafo-Arthur, 2008; Sefa Dei, 2005).

A center of trade and government in the region, Ghana was founded as a modern nation-state by Kwame Nkrumah, a leader in the global pan-African movement. Ghana allows for dual citizenship, as well as the right of abode for persons of African descent in the diaspora (Constitution, Republic of Ghana). Education and literacy rates are the highest among the three countries in this study, perhaps due to historic stability in the nation. The net enrollment ratios are 83.9% for young boys in primary school and 84.8% for young girls in primary school. In secondary school, the net enrollment ratios are 48.1% for young men and 44.4% for young women. The youth literacy rates are 88.3% for young men and 83.2% for young women (aged 15–24) (UNICEF, 2018).

Citizenship education has been a continual government priority in Ghana in the postcolonial era, illustrated by Kwame Nkrumah’s focus on free education and creation of the Young Pioneers’ Movement, government-sponsored youth groups in schools intended to provide anticolonial political education (Nicolas, 2017; Tetteh, 1999). In 1987, civic education was integrated into Social Studies as a core subject taught in the newly free basic universal education, which included both primary and junior secondary school (Arnot et al., 2018). Citizenship education initiatives by the Ghana Ministry of Education and civic organizations have been rooted in the goal of ensuring citizens are knowledgeable of the history, rights, principles, and values enshrined in the constitution of Ghana (Gyekye, 2004). Following the Presidential Commission Report in 2002, education for citizenship was specifically integrated into the primary school curriculum to teach nationalism and citizenship to the youth at an early school stage, and continues to be taught as a core subject in both primary and secondary schools (Boadu, 2013).

Liberia

Liberia is a smaller nation than Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, with 4.6 million people (CIA, n.d.). It was formally founded by African Americans in 1847, and was a haven for migrants or individuals freed from the slave trade in the 19^th century (Liebenow, 1987; Pailey, 2016). Settlers historically controlled the nation-state, with indigenous people gaining the right to vote in 1946; although Liberia was not colonized, settler control of political and cultural power has been compared with internal colonization (Whyte, 2016). The largest ethnic group is Kpelle, representing 20% of the population; other groups include Americo-Liberian, Bassa, Grebo, Gio, Mano, Kru, Loma, Kissi, Gola, and Mandingo (CIA, n.d.).

Between 1989 and 2003, Liberia experienced two civil conflicts stemming from discontent over indigenous access to the state, resulting in over 400,000 casualties. Fighting often split along ethnic lines, but as Konneh (2002) and Richards (1995) explain, ethnic tensions were more an opportunity for consolidation of different groups during contestation of power than an inherent cause of violence; for full details, consult Van der Kraaij (2015). In recent years, Liberia has elected Africa’s first female president, and recently completed its first peaceful transition of power since the war. The net enrollment ratios are 42.3% for young boys in primary school and 39.9% for young girls. In secondary school, the net attendance ratios are 14.4% for young men and 14.1% for young women. The youth literacy rates are the lowest among these three countries, at 63.5% for young men and 37.2% for young women (aged 15–24) (UNICEF, 2018). In Liberia, citizenship is taught via a social studies course in grades 1–9, and the 8th grade Social Studies curriculum specifically focuses on civics (Quaynor, 2015). There is no inclusion of war-time events in the Social Studies curriculum (Shepler and Williams, 2017).

Afrobarometer survey

Afrobarometer is an independent research consortium that conducts surveys on democracy and governance among adults 18 and above in 37 African countries. It has reached international prominence since its inception in 1999, and is funded by public resources from The World Bank (2018), Department for International Development (DFID), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The consortium is housed between three institutions: Michigan State University, Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa), and the Center for Democratic Development in Ghana (CDD-Ghana). Since 1999, six rounds of surveys have been conducted; typically, surveys range between 1200 and 2500 respondents in each country and are managed at the country level through local partners, using random selection and probability proportionate to population size (Afrobarometer, 2018). Surveys typically include 100 questions and are translated into 115 languages. Notably for this study, analyses across nations included in the Afrobarometer indicate that the co-ethnicity of the data collector affects survey responses: respondents interviewed by a co-ethnic were less likely to prioritize their national identity over their ethnic one, but were more likely to say that their ethnic group was economically and politically disadvantaged (Claire et al., 2015). This effect is a limitation to the findings in this study.

Research questions

In this analysis, we consider evidence from the Afrobarometer survey that schooling relates to ethnic and national identity as expressed by respondents in three countries sharing borders and ethnic groups but differing in historical experiences.

Specifically, using the most recent data available from the three countries of interest, we use the 2014 Afrobarometer survey data to investigate the relationships between civic identities and schooling, asking the following:

What is the relationship between schooling and respondent ethnonational identity in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Liberia?

Are response trends similar across all the three focus nations?

In order to respond to these questions we focused on Question 88 from the Afrobarometer survey:

Let us suppose that you had to choose between being a [Ghanaian/Liberian/Ivoirian] and being a __[ethnic group]______. Which of the following statements best expresses your feelings?

Respondents could then choose their response on a five-point scale, allowing them to disclose which of the two identities were more relevant to them.

Methods

As described above, we selected three West African countries, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, and Liberia, with differing histories related to colonization and conflict. In order to respond to our research questions, we downloaded data from Afrobarometer Round 6 for our focus countries; this is the most recent round available that includes all the three countries. We used the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 25 to calculate the frequencies across groups based on the self-reported amount of education.

In this study, we explored the impact of differing levels of education on responses to question 88, which asked respondents to select between the following ethnonational identities:

I feel only (R’s ethnic group)

I feel more (R’s ethnic group) than (R’s country)

I feel equally (R’s country) and (R’s ethnic group)

I feel more (R’s country) than (R’s ethnic group)

I feel only (R’s country)

The educational levels considered were categorized as follows to represent the schooling of participants:

Informal schooling only, including Koranic schooling

Some primary schooling

Primary school completed

Some secondary school, high school

Secondary school, high school completed

Postsecondary qualifications other than university

Some university

University completed

Postgraduate

Don’t know

Findings

The responses to survey question 88 showed varying trends regarding local and national identity in our three focus countries. Tables 1 and 2 show the distribution of local and national identity responses, with information from the 2014 round of data. Overall, respondents in Ghana demonstrated the strongest national identifications of the three countries. Ghanaians were the least likely to express that they only associated with their ethnic group (1.4%), with more Liberian (2.8%) and Ivoirien (4.3%) respondents associating primarily with their ethnic group. At the same time, the largest portion of Ghanaians stated that they felt only or mostly Ghanaian (53.6% in 2014), with a similarly sized group saying that they felt equally Ghanaian and a member of their ethnic group (35%). Respondents from Liberia were the most likely to state that they feel equally Liberian and a member of their ethnic group (61%), with only 16.6% of Liberian respondents stating that they felt only Liberian. In contrast, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana had between 33.6% and 53.6% of respondents stating that they identified primarily with their nation, and between 35% and 51% of respondents stating they felt equally a member of their national and ethnic groups.

Table 1.

Ethnic or national identity (percentages).

Ethnic category	Cote d’Ivoire	Ghana	Liberia
I feel only (R’s ethnic group)	4	1	3
I feel more (R’s ethnic group) than (R’s country)	5	10	8
I feel equally (R’s country) and (R’s ethnic group)	47	35	61
I feel more (R’s country) than (R’s ethnic group)	5	17	10
I feel only (R’s country)	39	37	17
Don’t know	0	1	2

Table 2.

Correlations.

			Côte d’Ivoire	Ghana	Liberia
Spearman’s rho	Côte d’Ivoire	Correlation coefficient	1.000	.912^*	.986^**
		Sig. (two-tailed)		.011	.000
		N	6	6	6
	Ghana	Correlation coefficient	.912^*	1.000	.928^**
		Sig. (two-tailed)	.011		.008
		N	6	6	6
	Liberia	Correlation coefficient	.986^**	.928^**	1.000
		Sig. (two-tailed)	.000	.008
		N	6	6	6

Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).

Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed).

To determine the correlation in local and national identity among the three focus countries, a Spearman’s rank–order correlation was run to determine how participants’ expressions of identity were related among the three countries. The correlation output shows a correlation among all the three countries. When compared at the individual country level, there was a strong, positive statistically significant correlation at p = .011 between Ivoirians and Ghanaians. The correlation coefficient between Ghana and Liberia was positive with p = .008 and a positive correlation between Cote D’Ivoire and Liberia with p = .0001.

Tables 3 to 6 report the results from an analysis of variance (ANOVA) between the two multi-categorical variables (education level and national vs ethnic identification) across the three societies. The descriptive Table 3 reports the mean and standard deviation between subjects by ethnic identity.

Table 3.

ANOVA.

		Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	Sig.
I feel only (ethnic group)	Between groups	3.607	3	1.202	.286	.835
	Within groups	88.233	21	4.202
	Total	91.840	24
I feel more (ethnic group) than (national identity)	Between groups	156.271	4	39.068	3.605	.021
	Within groups	238.395	22	10.836
	Total	394.667	26
I feel equally (national identity) and (ethnic group)	Between groups	193.675	4	48.419	.289	.882
	Within groups	4350.067	26	167.310
	Total	4543.742	30
I feel more (national identity) than (ethnic group)	Between groups	485.830	3	161.943	3.865	.022
	Within groups	963.800	23	41.904
	Total	1449.630	26
I feel only (national identity)	Between groups	625.802	4	156.451	.616	.655
	Within groups	6860.167	27	254.080
	Total	7485.969	31
Don’t know	Between groups	832.415	3	277.472	474.161	.000
	Within groups	7.022	12	.585
	Total	839.438	15

ANOVA: analysis of variance.

Table 4.

Cote D’Ivoire—ANOVA between education groups.

		Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	Sig.
I feel only ethnic group	Between groups	118,272,749.909	4	29,568,187.477	1.773	.253
	Within groups	100,040,019.000	6	16,673,336.500
	Total	218,312,768.909	10
I feel more ethnic group than national identity	Between groups	74,608,925.027	4	18,652,231.257	.621	.664
	Within groups	180,162,059.700	6	30,027,009.950
	Total	254,770,984.727	10
I feel equally national identity and ethnic group	Between groups	91,787,744.982	4	22,946,936.245	523,106.449	.000
	Within groups	263.200	6	43.867
	Total	91,788,008.182	10
I feel more national identity than ethnic group	Between groups	118,260,016.745	4	29,565,004.186	1.772	.253
	Within groups	100,080,031.800	6	16,680,005.300
	Total	218,340,048.545	10
I feel only national identity	Between groups	91,621,598.727	4	22,905,399.682	880,976.911	.000
	Within groups	156,000	6	26,000
	Total	91,621,754.727	10
Don’t know	Between groups	33,636,363.636	4	8,409,090.909	.388	.811
	Within groups	130,000,000.000	6	21,666,666.667
	Total	163,636,363.636	10

ANOVA: analysis of variance.

Table 5.

Ghana—ANOVA between education groups.

		Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	Sig.
I feel only ethnic group	Between groups	113,661,825.027	4	28,415,456.257	3.410	.088
	Within groups	50,000,003.700	6	8,333,333.950
	Total	163,661,828.727	10
I feel more ethnic group than national identity	Between groups	149.500	4	37.375	12.122	.005
	Within groups	18.500	6	3.083
	Total	168.000	10
I feel equally national identity and ethnic group	Between groups	91,563,100.227	4	22,890,775.057	706,142.161	.000
	Within groups	194.500	6	32.417
	Total	91,563,294.727	10
I feel more national identity than ethnic group	Between groups	91,206,181.982	4	22,801,545.495	1,483,831.594	.000
	Within groups	92.200	6	15.367
	Total	91,206,274.182	10
I feel only national identity	Between groups	2456.436	4	614.109	28.967	.000
	Within groups	127.200	6	21.200
	Total	2583.636	10
Don’t know	Between groups	192,722,181.927	4	48,180,545.482	3.614	.079
	Within groups	79,996,000.800	6	13,332,666.800
	Total	272,718,182.727	10

ANOVA: analysis of variance.

Table 6.

Liberia—ANOVA between education groups.

		Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	Sig.
I feel only ethnic group	Between groups	218,296,382.845	4	54,574,095.711	10,329,481.838	.000
	Within groups	31.700	6	5.283
	Total	218,296,414.545	10
I feel more ethnic group than national identity	Between groups	113,794,630.182	4	28,448,657.545	3.407	.088
	Within groups	50,100,126.000	6	8,350,021.000
	Total	163,894,756.182	10
I feel equally national identity and ethnic group	Between groups	63.136	4	15.784	.147	.958
	Within groups	644.500	6	107.417
	Total	707.636	10
I feel more national identity than ethnic group	Between groups	113,789,200.545	4	28,447,300.136	3.403	.088
	Within groups	50,160,170.000	6	8,360,028.333
	Total	163,949,370.545	10
I feel only national identity	Between groups	262.709	4	65.677	1.437	.329
	Within groups	274.200	6	45.700
	Total	536.909	10
Don’t know	Between groups	88,329,873.136	4	22,082,468.284	1.019	.468
	Within Groups	130,060,010.500	6	21,676,668.417
	Total	218,389,883.636	10

ANOVA: analysis of variance.

There was a significant effect of education level on ethnonational identity at the p < .05 level among participants who felt ‘More Ethnic than National’ F(4, 22) = 3.605, p = .021 and those who felt more ‘National than Ethnic’ F(3, 23) = 3.865, p = .022. The analysis was not significant for participants with the following ethnic identifications: ‘Ethnic Only’ F(3, 21) = .286, p = .835; ‘Equally Ethnic and National’ F(4, 26) = .289, p = .882; ‘National Only’ F(4, 27) = .616, p = .655. When examined by country, for respondents from Cote D’Ivoire, the educational level was significantly related to the responses ‘Equally Ethnic and National’ F = (4, 6) = 523,106.449, p = .000; and ‘National Only’ F(4, 6) = 880,976.911, p = .000. For respondents from Ghana, the relationship between education level and ethnic identity was statistically significant for participants who felt ‘More Ethnic than National’ F(4, 6) = 12.122, p = .005, ‘Equally Ethnic and National’ F(4, 6) = 706,142.1, p = .000, ‘More National than Ethnic’ F(4, 6) = 1483,831.0, p = .000; and ‘National Only’ F(4, 6) = 28.967, p = .000. In Liberia, in contrast, the relationship between education level and ethnic identity was only statistically significant for the participants who felt ‘Ethnic Only’ F(4, 6) = 10,329,481.838, p = .000.

Full details regarding the percentage of respondents by education level and national identity are available in Table 7. In both Ghana and Liberia, the majority of respondents who completed only informal schooling, which includes community-based education organizations, Koranic, and other religious non-traditional education, identified mainly as members of their nation. In Côte d’Ivoire, the majority of respondents who completed only informal schooling identified equally as members of their nation and their ethnic group.

Table 7.

Ethnonational identity and educational level (2014–2015).

	I feel only (ethnic group)			I feel more (ethnic group) than (national identity)			I feel equally (national identity) and (ethnic group)			I feel more (national identity) than (ethnic group)			I feel only (national identity)			Don’t know
Education of Respondent	CDI	Ghana	Liberia	CDI	Ghana	Liberia	CDI	Ghana	Liberia	CDI	Ghana	Liberia	CDI	Ghana	Liberia	CDI	Ghana	Liberia
No	5	2	3	8	8	10	54	38	65	5	12	10	27	40	10	1	1	2
Informal schooling only	2	3	5	0	12	17	54	41	66	6	7	6	38	37	3	0	0	3
Some primary schooling	6	1	3	2	12	7	52	30	59	4	13	7	37	44	24	0	1	0
Primary school completed	2	1	2	7	13	6	47	32	68	1	17	5	43	36	17	0	1	2
Some secondary school /high school	5	1	5	5	10	10	45	34	52	5	19	12	40	35	19	0	0	2
Secondary school /high school completed	2	1	1	7	8	8	34	37	68	6	19	11	50	35	11	1	1	1
Postsecondary qualifications, other than university	0	2	8	0	10	6	52	35	61	0	16	15	48	37	10	0	1	0
Some university	6	4	2	5	9	5	44	35	57	6	9	12	40	44	24	0	0	0
University completed	4	1	0	4	5	11	51	36	45	4	31	17	37	27	22	0	0	5
Postgraduate	0	0	0	0	4	0	59	51	75	0	30	0	41	15	25	0	0	0
Don’t know	0	0	0	0	19	0	0	0	57	0	0	0	0	81	12	0	0	31

CDI: Côte d’Ivoire.

A different pattern is seen among primary school attendees and completers. In Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana, close to half of primary school completers identified equally as members of their nation and their ethnic group. In Liberia, these percentages were much higher, with over two-thirds of primary school completers identifying equally as members of their nation and their ethnic group. However, across all the three societies, for respondents who completed some secondary school, the percentage of respondents reporting balanced ties dipped, with more respondents selecting higher identification with their ethnic group or nation at this stage. In addition, in all the three societies, between 6% and 11% of university graduates identified primarily with their ethnic group. For those respondents who completed postgraduate studies, none identified solely with their ethnic group. In Ghana, none of the respondents who completed graduate school identified more strongly with their ethnic group than with their nation. In Liberia, none of the respondents who completed university identified only with their ethnic group. Most respondents who completed graduate school across all societies feel equally that they are members of their nation and their ethnic group.

Limitations

This exploratory study is based on self-reports of identity and education. Identity is not necessarily predictive of action, although political science research indicates that citizens who express empowerment and identity as national citizens are more likely to interact with the state (Bleck, 2015). Despite the comprehensive nature of the Afrobarometer study, questions asked are closed-response questions, and do not allow for rich description or exploration of the variety of ways people understand their identities. In addition, although Afrobarometer data is coded by gender, age, and status, we do not explore the relationship of these variables alongside education. These questions should be asked using regression and controlled measures to capture the various ways in which multiple identities may intersect with educational experiences. Finally, we analyzed data from one round of the survey for all the three of our focus countries; this analysis could be repeated across time points for validation.

Re-mapping nationality, ethnicity, and education

Despite the intentional focus of most education systems to promote national cohesion (Arnot et al., 2018), the relationship between education and national identity was not linear in the three societies focused upon here. Higher percentages of respondents with informal education, in some cases, identified with the nation than university completers. In all the countries, the percentages of respondents prioritizing national identity were much higher than the percentages prioritizing ethnic identity, which may align with the provision of material goods along national lines in contemporary states (Dorman et al., 2007).

We expected the percentage of respondents who identified only as members of their ethnic group to decrease with the amount of schooling completed, but this was not the case. In fact, respondents in all the three countries who completed primary school had lower rates of identification with their ethnic group than secondary school completers in the 2014 data. It is possible that adults who have only attended primary school experienced a more nationalistic citizenship education curriculum that becomes more nuanced and critical in secondary school. In studying primary school curricula trends internationally, sociologists note a focus on national patriotism in countries as diverse as Nigeria, the Philippines (Meyer et al., 2017), and Sweden (Ljunggren, 2014), with a rationale of focusing on national heritage and history in response to a perceived need to foster social cohesion.

In contrast, it may be possible that individuals who complete secondary school think more deeply about balancing different facets of their identities. In Ghana, Levstik and Groth’s (2005) study of citizenship education documented how youth learned narratives about integrating national and ethnic identities in junior secondary school, overall, integrating ethnic identities into a national story. This report aligns with analyses of citizenship education in secondary schools in other contexts, such as Leung and Print’s (2002) findings that teachers in Hong Kong secondary schools understood national citizenship from an eclectic and cosmopolitan perspective, rather than as an exclusive category.

Despite the variation in education and ethnic and national identification, one cross-country trend was the lack of ethnic identification as primary among graduate school attendees. In addition, in Liberia, between 75% and 100% of graduate school attendees reported balanced identification with their ethnic group and nationality (or slight preference for nationality over ethnic group); in Ghana, this number was also high at 81%, and in Côte d’Ivoire it was 59%. Given that education is a benefit often provided by the state, and that postgraduate education is often either provided via the state or other supernational organizations, such as religious affiliations, it is not surprising that respondents who completed postgraduate study might prioritize national identification. Indeed, ethnographic research suggests that taking on a schooled identity builds students’ allegiance to state culture (Levinson et al., 1996).

What is surprising, however, is that the majority of respondents who attended graduate school equally value their ethnic and national identification. Ethnographic research on citizenship in other contexts reports that elites may be able to transcend the nation-state, holding more cosmopolitan notions of citizenship (Alviar-Martin and Baildon, 2016; Ong, 1999). Completers of graduate education in these contexts may or may not be considered economic or political elites; however, given that the rates of graduate school attendance are less than 5% in each country, these respondents are educational elites and may have studied outside of their country. However, Ong (1999) cautions us to not overlook ‘complicated accommodations, alliances, and creative tensions between the nation-state and mobile capital, between diaspora and nationalism’ (p. 16). Indeed, postgraduate completers in these countries may be aware of the power of ethnic traditions and identities in professional and personal networks, and are able to navigate these two identities in useful ways (Berman, 1998; Falola, 2004).

Conflict, context, and citizenship

Another finding worth consideration is that education level and ethnonational identity were related for respondents in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire who felt ‘Equally Ethnic and National’ and ‘National Only’, whereas education level and ethnonational identity were only related for respondents who felt ‘Ethnic Only’ in Liberia. When compared with countries across the region and continent, Liberia stands out in its low proportion of respondents who identify mainly with their nation. Although both Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia recently experienced conflict mobilizing groups by ethnicity, in the Ivoirian conflict, ethnicity was conflated with nationalism, with government policies, and actions ascribing foreign status to Muslim groups from the north. Thus, in the Ivoirian context, national identification may serve as exclusionary and in fact result from this understanding of nationhood during the conflict. Alternatively, we consider that recent histories of conflict may be less salient to national identification than the historical context of the nation. Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire both developed national identities in response to colonization, whereas Liberia is unique in West Africa in its settlement by free Blacks, and the continued inclusion of its settlers in citizenship, even as settler identity is not considered an official ethnic group. Despite the continued focus on comparing British and French colonial rule and its implications for citizenship in African studies, these findings suggest that the experience of colonization and decolonization in a multiethnic state may be associated with stronger national identification than in a context that was settled and expanded its citizenship claims to indigenous citizens gradually. Furthermore, it should be noted that due to conflict and displacement, Liberian adult respondents to the Afrobarometer survey may be less likely to have completed their education in their home country than Ivoirians and Ghanaians.

Conclusion

As schools and organizations focus on fostering inclusive and global citizenship, scholars continue to investigate the ways in which schooling both divides and bridges communities and nations (Davies et al., 2018; Goren and Yemini, 2018). As explored earlier in this article, education that helps people to balance local-level, national-level, and global identities is theorized as an ideal outcome for critical, transformative citizens (Banks, 2017). We have analyzed responses from three societies in West Africa in the hopes of sharing ways that national context, education and citizens’ identities are interrelated.

To complement studies that powerfully show that education builds affiliation with and participation in the nation-state (Agyeman, 1988; Bleck, 2015), data from this analysis suggest that participation in increasing levels of education may build affiliation with both one’s nation and one’s ethnic group at the same time, or sequentially. Indeed, we hope this analysis helps scholars to consider that ethnic and national affiliations are not zero-sum, and that holding overlapping identifications may be the most common identity among the most educated individuals in a nation. In addition, we show that in the three societies studied, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire had more respondents who identified only with the nation-state than Liberia, suggesting that the collective experience of decolonization may contribute to the creation of a strong national identity. Exploration of this high-level data raises questions regarding how national and ethnic identities are being fostered for social cohesion across these societies: Are questions of multiple identifications being raised in high schools and universities, accounting for less strictly national identification at these levels? Are these identities being prioritized in response to patronage or other informal networks that have material implications for respondents? Educational research for inclusive global citizenship would be enriched by investigating the ways in which students, teachers, and other citizens in these societies negotiate their multiple identities to promote a peaceful society that allows for both social cohesion and civic engagement.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

Laura Quaynor and Bright Borkorm are also affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, USA.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Laura Quaynor

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