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Title Brilla boy!: Educated masculinity, hope and future-making in a Ghanaian senior high school
Full text https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/42958/1/Brilla%20boy%20%20%20Educated%20masculinity%20%20hope%20and%20future-making%20in%20a%20Ghanaian%20senior%20high%20school.pdf
Date 2024
Author(s) Ahmed, Ayisha
Abstract This paper examines the significance of Ghana's National Science and Maths Quiz (the NSMQ) drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a secondary school in Ghana (known as Brilliant Academy) conducted between 2021'2022. Using the concepts of hope and aspiration this paper seeks to explore how the NSMQ serves as a vehicle for hope. It begins with a historical lens, examining how the pedagogical practices laid down by missionaries now in place at Brilliant Academy serve to cultivate the type of educated person promoted by the quiz show, that of the 'brilla boy'. This figure is widely respected within the school and as such students eagerly aspire to take part in the quiz. I also suggest that the celebration of maths and science in the quiz makes the NSMQ bridge together 'old' and 'new' hopes attached to education, and science and maths in particular, evident in Kwame Nkrumah's vision for postcolonial Ghana.
Language en
Publisher Taylor and Francis
Relation https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/42958/; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17457823.2024.2423285; 10.1080/17457823.2024.2423285
Type of publication Journal Article; PeerReviewed
Format text
Rights cc_by_nc_nd_4
Identifier Ahmed, Ayisha (2024) 'Brilla boy!: Educated masculinity, hope and future-making in a Ghanaian senior high school.' Ethnography and Education. pp. 1-18. (Forthcoming)
Repository London - SOAS, University of London
Added to C-A: 2024-11-18;08:45:13