The Contribution of Indigenous Knowledge to the Development and Practices of K-12 School Leadership : A Study of the Akan People of Ghana, West Africa
| dc.contributor.advisor | Wallin, Dawn | |
| dc.contributor.advisor | Okoko, Janet | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Lopez, Ann | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Newton, Paul | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Balzer, Geraldine | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Osiname, Ayodeji | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Xiao, Jing | |
| dc.creator | Eshun, Theodora Mary | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-01-15T16:42:18Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-01-15T16:42:18Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 2024 | |
| dc.date.created | 2024-08 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025-01-15 | |
| dc.date.submitted | August 2024 | |
| dc.date.updated | 2025-01-15T16:42:18Z | |
| dc.description.abstract | There is limited knowledge and understanding of school leadership development and practices beyond the Anglo-western Canadian context. University-based K-12 school leadership programs are not always portable across varied populations in this global world, particularly in rural Indigenous communities in the Global South. This study explored an avenue for generating rural Indigenous Akan knowledge to augment K-12 school leadership practices aimed at enhancing rural Indigenous school children’s educational outcomes. The study focused on two sites utilizing an ethnographic approach undergirded by an Indigenist feminist epistemology. This study explores: a) how local Akan Indigenous leaders use African Indigenous Knowledge (AIK) in children’s education, as demonstrated by their child upbringing norms; b) how Ghana’s K-12 school leadership development program implementers understand African Indigenous Knowledge (AIK) and Indigenous leadership practices, as well as how this understanding influences their work, and; c) how the lack of African Indigenous Knowledge (AIK) in school leadership development impacts K-12 school principal leadership practices, and children’s educational outcomes in Ghanaian Indigenous rural communities. Using the African Akan pedagogical symbol of Sankofa as a representation of anti-colonial theory and post-colonial feminist theory, this study explored the first and second stages of the African Akan Indigenous educational (AIE) leadership practices alongside the Eurocentric colonially bequeathed form of formal K-12 school leadership practices in Ghana. African Indigenist modes of knowledge generation required the utilization of culturally safe research strategies as showcased in the use of the Dwabo and Atsekuw Esoun principles of community data collection and analysis in this African community-based research (ACBR). | |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10388/16449 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.subject | African Indigenous Knowledge (AIK), African Indigenous Education (AIE), Community-based research (CBR), Colonial Education, Indigenous Feminism, Sankofa anti-colonial theory, School leadership preparation | |
| dc.title | The Contribution of Indigenous Knowledge to the Development and Practices of K-12 School Leadership : A Study of the Akan People of Ghana, West Africa | |
| dc.type | Thesis | |
| dc.type.material | text | |
| thesis.degree.department | Educational Administration | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Educational Administration | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Saskatchewan | |
| thesis.degree.level | Doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) |