An analysis of discipline and punish
in Tanzanian schools
– master thesis submitted May 2009
University of Oslo –
Summary
One of the topics of this master thesis is discipline of students in Tanzanian schools. The thesis is based on a six months fieldwork in Moshi in the Kilimanjaro region. I was mainly in a private secondary school. In Moshi most of my informants were of Chagga ethnicity. Another topic in the text is how clothing and language are types of discipline. English is the language of instruction in Tanzanian secondary schools. According to my limited experience, teachers talk Swahili when disciplining students, while the curriculum is taught in English. Moreover, code switching and code mixing is common among students. In the thesis, I consider if this switching and mixing also contains a shift in social fields and contexts. Discipline and punish are forms of power, an overarching theme of the whole thesis. Corporal punishment is used both at home and in schools. Pain is remembered as an incorporating practice.
Towards the end I address religion in connection with moral, gender roles and punishment. Religion is used by some to justify corporal punishment. In Salomo’s proverbs, for instance, it is written how to use corporal punishment to raise the child. Moreover, religion is a central part of the discourse that defines the concept of caning. Corporal punishment was (2007) and still is (2019) legal under the National Education Act, 1978. I see the praxis in relation with Chagga history, as well as German and British colonial history. Overarching structures of Tanzanian society are furthermore described as a contributing factor to the frequency of punishment. Still, the topic is met with humour and few seem to get traumatised by such punishment. My aim is to seek an understanding of why this might be so.
Note of gratitude
“You don’t change the world, it’s the world that changes you,” my first councillor Anne Birgitte Leseth claimed before I went for fieldwork. Somehow she had a good point. My time in Tanzania brought a wealth of acquaintances and impulses. The experience has been a giant lesson. Many people have contributed to this project. Indeed, it would never have gotten submitted without significant help from my councillors, family and friends. I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to:
my mom, Karina Barsnes, and my late dad, Einar Vidvei,
the associate professors Rune Flikke and Anne Leseth,
family and friends,
the late professor Aud Talle,
professor emeritus Birgit Broch Utne,
the University Library of Oslo,
all informants,
the familiy who introduced my to my Tanzanian host family,
the Nordic Africa Institute,
fellow anthropology students in Oslo and the Institute employees,
Gunnar Husabø, Jorid Kåresen Hervik, Solvor Horrig Helland, Hilde Øvreness, Kristian Dyrkorn, Espen Helgesen and Per Christian Grov.
IOU!
Introduction
Chapter 1
Some central topics
The interplay between students, teachers and parents in Tanzania is the main issue of this master thesis. I chose to focus on discipline performed by teachers and parents as a part of parenting and educating youth in Tanzania. Discipline is the ability and will to submit to a common leadership (Caplex 2008). The word originates from nurturing or educating, from Latin disciplina. Throughout the fieldwork I experienced life as an observing student, participating teacher and an “uncle” in my host family.
Which punishment and discipline are executed through the educational system in which way? In the following I concentrate on secondary schools. Education and society are reciprocally dependent on each-other. They are intertwined and mutually dependent. A school can express something on the larger society. At the same time schools can transform communities (Porter 1998). In this study I present values that are transmitted via education, and how they convey narratives about Tanzanian society.
In Tanzania, formal education was first established by Germans when Tanganyika was a German colony. Today the educational system in Tanzania is based on the British model. A topic in the thesis is how cultural heritage is elaborated at school. Furthermore, I refer to relevant research that aims to explain corporal punishment on a macro level (Ember & Ember 2005).
Birgit Brock-Utne (2000) has claimed that the educational system represents a re-colonisation of the mind for Tanzanian children. The structure of the system and the curriculum is inspired by the British. When the language of instruction is English, it has consequences also for the identity. In Tanzania Swahili is language of instruction in primary school, while English is language of instruction in secondary school. Code switching and code mixing was common among teachers and students.
The analysis will incorporate language issues with discipline and punish. When Tanzania had its independence in 1961, Julius Nyerere claimed only five persons had university education in the country. Since then Tanzania has gained more than 200 institutions of tertiary education. Most children have access to primary education, but still only 20 % of the students who complete primary school continue with secondary education. Among these more than half fail or score in the lowest division (Stambach 1996).
A theory I had was that corporal punishment was more frequent when the language of instruction is English compared to Swahili. I will return to epirical examples that illustrates this claim.
The Chagga are the majority ethnic group in the Kilimanjaro region. In earlier times, grandparents taught their grand children songs, stories, rituals, riddles and lessons to prepare them for adulthood (Setel 1996). Now the lack of control of children is a crucial problem in Moshi. Teachers would complain to me that the youth was mislead by information from TV, Internet and cell phones. These platforms gave the youth new role models, who were not necessarily preferred by the teachers.
Surprising events
My fieldwork was full of surprises. Of course not everything would go as planned or expected. It was chocking to see pupils given corporal punishment. It puzzled me that this wasn’t more of a controversial topic. I asked many questions to teachers, students and parents about the topic, and let it be clear that I was no fan of the method. Still I wanted to understand why corporal punishment is considered a normal practice. As far as I perceived, students didn’t appear to get traumatised from such punishment. Most of the students I talked to had experienced it once or more, either at home or at school.
Kirsten Hastrup (1992) wrote about astonishment as part of the anthropological project. We let ourselves be fascinated and surprised by the «alien» culture. Our place in the middle of the field requires reflection on which form of science anthropology represents (ibid: 8). For instance I could not become an expert on Tanzanian schools by being there for six months.
Corporal punishment is considered normal, and children as well as adults often laugh at the topic when it is mentioned. A headmaster in Usambara laughed when he explained how he practiced corporal punishment in his school. When corporal punishment is considered «harmless,» it makes it easier to understand why the students didn’t appear to be traumatised by it. Thus, it was an everyday phenomena for them, not considered as violence. As I observed, some students expressed fear and pain in strong expressions, while others put pride in remaining calm while punished. According to Carol and Melvin Ember (2005) corporal punishment was common in approximately 40 % of the chosen societies in the questionnaire, and this shows the phenomena being a cross-cultural praxis. In Tanzania I met diverse opinions about this way of punishment. Teachers, students and parents didn’t agree on the fruitfulness or backwardness of the method, and I will elaborate on this in Chapter 4, which addresses punishment as a topic.
Another aspect that surprised me, was how code mixing and code switching was practiced. The official injunction states that only English should be spoken at school, but this was rarely practiced. Teachers as well as students used Swahili frequently in the schoolyard and in the classroom. In the staffroom they talked Swahili more or less all the time. Only a few teachers used English consistently in their teaching. This topic is addressed in Chapter 3.
Core issues
Power is an aspect that is part of almost any relation (Eriksen 1998: 199). I will discuss this by using Wolf’s (1994) take on power. As stated, my impression after my time in Tanzania, was that corporal punishment is to be considered normal and an everyday experience. However, I considered it more of a phenomenon worthy of closer study. The main issues of this thesis are to explore:
- How are students disciplined by teachers in schools?
- How is corporal punishment legitimised?
- Which discourse is punishment defined by?
- Which kind of a job does the punishment achieve?
Corporal punishment is often legitimised through tradition and custom. Furthermore, the Bible was used as justification. The discourse of punishment was defined through religious and legal discussions. The mentioned issues invite for a thorough debate about discipline and normality. Is it the laws or social praxis that sets the standard for normality? In Tanzania corporal punishment is normal historically as well as contemporary, and my empirical data will disclose how this is justified.
Core concepts and literature
To begin with, the project was inspired by Lessons from Mount Kilimanjaro by the American anthropologist Amy Stambach (2000). She addresses relations between tradition and modernity, and how these are connected to education. Her monograph shows how Western culture can influence youth via both media and education. Moreover, she explores issues such as gender, family and community. She has less focus on language of instruction and discipline. Thus, my study hopefully will cast light on new contemporary issues in the Kilimanjaro region.
Herman Batibo, Professor of African linguistics at the University of Dar es Salaam, made in 1995 an estimate that only five percent of the Tanzanian people speak English as a second language (Vuzo 2007). In contrast, it was estimated that 99 percent of the Tanzanian population speak Swahili as mother tongue or as a second language in Tanzania (Brock-Utne 2006a: 20). To master English is an exclusive skill. How is power expressed through language, and how is language power?
Corporal punishment was abolished in Norwegian schools in 1936, while UK first abolished it in 1987. According to the organisation Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, corporal punishment in schools is legal in at least 106 countries. In Europe only the Czech republic allows such practice. In the Education Act of 1978 it is stated that the headmaster or another teacher by delegation can give up to six blows to punish students in Tanzanian schools. The punishment has to be recorded in a log, and the parents are required to give their permission.
The Minister may make regulations of this Act, and, without prejudice to the make [sic] generality of the power to make regulations for the following purposes: […] to prescribe the conditions of expulsion or exclusion from schools on the grounds og age, discipline or health and to provide for and control the administration of corporal punishment in schools. (The National Education Act 1978 § 60o)
I discovered that corporal punishment is more frequent than what this law allows. One of my aims with the thesis is to discuss why this is the case.
Several key concepts need to be defined to clarify the content of these issues. To discipline is a mean to subordinate, lead and chastise students at school or children in the family. Corporal punishment is deliberately giving another person pain to correct or stop unwanted behaviour. In this context, it is punishment given by teachers with a stick or the hands on students. The punishment can also be an expression of contempt.
Analytical perceptions
To analyse the data I use different theories and methods. Paul Connerton (1989) addresses how communal memory is stored and transmitted in the book How societies remember. He considers this to be incorporated practices, the memories are stored in the body. His perspective is also relevant to view corporal punishment as such a practice. Connerton argues that social habits essentially are legitimating performances. By giving empirical examples, I will show how his analytical perspective is constructive. Following his claims, corporeal habits are expressions of power. The act of disciplining a child physically is a social and legitimating performance (ibid:35). By sensing this habit as a ritual, we can also grasp the lack of variation. Connerton thinks recollective ceremonies are performative: «Performability cannot be thought without a concept of habit, and habit cannot be thought without an idea of corporeal automatic» (ibid.: 5). I view corporal punishment as such a habit, and will use Connerton’s theories to show how we can understand
punishment as a performance.
Furthermore, Philipson’s theory (1992) of linguistic imperialism will be a fundament for a discussion of whether or not English as language of instruction suppresses Tanzanian traditional cultures. Philipson argues that English has taken over a new form of colonisation of Africa among other parts of the world. I also touch on Amy Stambach’s discussions of the relations between tradition and modernity for Tanzanian youth. This will be addressed in Chapter 3. Linguistic imperialism is a «subgroup of cultural imperialism, attached to language, but also including other categories since all are mediated through language» Vuzo 2007: 124). From this reasoning English is the external connection within politics, commerce, science, technology, military treaties, entertainment and tourism (ibid.).
Inspired by Leslie C. Moore’s study (2006) of Quran schools, I will analyse linguistic practices by the help of linguistic socialisation theory, which states that the process of learning a language is «significantly influenced by the process of becoming a competent member of a community, and this process is largely realised through language (Moore 2006: 111). The use of the cane in the parenting and fostering of children can be perceived as a similar process they must go through to become competent members of a community.
A ritual is events, often assigned symbolic value, and their performance are often prescribed in a religion, or by customs in a community. «If we can say that religion is a set of perceptions on the supernatural and sacred, about life after death etc, the rituals are the social processes that give the religious perceptions a specific, sensible expression» (Eriksen 1998: 299).
Victor Turner’s theory about rituals can be applied to analyse the experience of pain as a collective ritual. Turner emphasised understanding the sacred, emotional and socially integrating by combining several levels in making sense of rituals. He particularly worked on rite de passage and the meanings of these. Veena Das (1995) discusses whether pain destroys the ability to communicate, or if it creates a moral fellowship of the suffering. In this thesis I will relate my empirical data to these theories, which are fruitful because they can help us understand informants» experience of punishment.
I want to discuss if it is relevant to see punishment as a ritual. Pierre Bourdieu (1995: 143) names punishment and reward «institutionalised rituals,» and claims that «the ceremonies attached to these rituals amplifies the role of education as essential for personal distinction.»
Why Tanzania?
Several reasons made Tanzania an attractive field of study. Africa appeared as a magnificent and diverse continent. Moreover I had studied fascinating monographs by anthropologists such as E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Henrietta Moore. Before my master’s I underwent a year studying applied pedagogy, and was a student teacher in Norway and in USA via an exchange program. This experience led me to gain interest in international and comparative pedagogy. Still I it important to address weaknesses in such comparisons. They are rather comparisons of subjective descriptions of societies than comparisons of societies or cultures (Barth 1999). But for the sake of such comparisons I’d like to use my experience from several teaching traditions. Common for my experience was the challenge of gaining trust and respect from the students: I suppose many teachers have found it hard to maintain discipline in the classroom.
Education is maybe considered the most important mean to fight poverty in the South. UNESCO (2001) states that education is fundamental to erase poverty and to economic growth. Africa is a continent traditionally associated with poverty, war and corruption. At the same time it is naive to believe that schools can save everything. It is necessary to question which kind of an education that’s given, not only how many have access to education. In Tanzania the first President Julius K. Nyerere particularly emphasised education, with the political philosophy «Education for Subsistence.» Every school should also be a farm, and the teachers and students should be farmers (Stambach 2000). At several occasions during my fieldwork agricultural labour or cleaning classrooms were given as a punishment at schools.
One of my aims with this thesis is to present a critical supplement of the prevailing educational optimism. Birgit Brock-Utne questions this by stating that we should not be content barely by the fact that a child has access to education, but critically assess which kind of an education
it is given. Education is fronted by the Tanzanian government as the most important mean to strengthen the domestic economy, «and to adapt to the ever-changing market and technological affairs in the region as well as the global economy» (Tanzania Government 2008b, 1st paragraph). Kilimanjaro is a region where formal education has a relatively long history, thanks to the missionary enterprise.
Amy Stambach’s Lessons from Mount Kilimanjaro introduced me to education in Tanzania in general, and in Kilimanjaro particularly. Sheri Bastien’s master thesis (2005) gave further insight in the lives of youth in Moshi. Another project of interest was Language of instruction in Tanzania and South Africa (LOITASA), where Professor Birgit Brock-Utne as one of the founders. I am grateful for all these inspirations to build on.
Methods
The purpose of this thesis is first and foremost to solve the stated issues. My empirical data is a fundament for this problem solving. Still, my interpretation of these events and narratives is only one truth among many. Each actor in a social group will have his own version of what really happened. The interpretation of sociocultural phenomena in the field is the most important element of an anthropological text, but the reading of ethnographic predecessors also contains an interpretation (Archetti 1994). I often discussed specific situations from classrooms or the schoolyard, to get several points of view and explanations of what was going on. «As in other forms of written presentations, anthropologists combine «factual» writing with «subjective» experiences, intellectual and theoretical references» (ibid.: 13).
An interesting question is how informants are influenced by being observed by an anthropologist. It’s impossible for me to know exactly how the state of affairs changed when I was not present. I got the impression that the teachers were not afraid to use corporal punishment, code switching or humour whether I was there or not. Still, the lessons would be somehow different without an external observer. When visiting Mkufi Secondary School in Machame, a student told me «the teacher never gave us this good of a lesson before.» He encouraged me to come back to observe more.
To solve the present issues, I used various methods such as participant observation, interviews, questionnaires and focus groups. In the fieldwork i moved mainly in a universe defined by theme (Frøystad 2003: 45) since the majority of my informants were teachers and students in Moshi. Besides, the informants were defined by network since I got to know the main informant Nathifa via my host family. Her friends was also informants and important contributors to this study of Mtaa Secondary School. During the stay I got certain ideas I wanted to prove with questionnaires and more observations. I also made visual representations of theories inspired by Cato Wadel (1991) among others. An important thesis is that Swahili is an informal tool at school, while English was the formal language for formal occasions.
By living in a medium sized city I didn’t perform a classic village fieldwork (Frøystad 2003). Still, I felt deeply involved in my informants everyday living. Even though it has been claimed that fieldwork in big cities has low anthropological prestige (ibid.), I was content with the quality of the fieldwork. I had great access and got to know a small group of persons at the school, and got to evolve in depth knowledge on their lives.
I used previous experience from the teaching profession to compare and analyse events and claims. I got to teach too, because of my teacher education. I learned a lot from that. Sometimes I felt as a student myself, although I had the role of a teacher. According to the learning pyramid we are on top as learners when we teach others (Woolfolk 2004). This insight is framed mainly on the subject taught, but I claim that it also gave me anthropological insights. During the fieldwork I visited five secondary schools and two primary schools in the Kilimanjaro region, a secondary school and a primary school in Usambara mountains, and a primary school in Dar es Salaam. Through interviews with the headmasters I learned the particularities of the various schools. Next is a brief presentation of the methods I applied.
Qualitative and quantitative method
I mostly applied qualitative methods, but also quantitative. Qualitative methods are more subjective and requires a interprative approach. Qualitative methods also make interpretations more dynamic, by analysing the changes that take place. The quantitative information contains questionnaires to understand ideas of correlation and elaboration.
Participant observation
I lived with a family and learned how everyday living can be in Moshi. This gave me data to compare formal education with parenting at home. In the weekdays I normally went to Mtaa Secondary School, or to one of the two primary schools where the children of my host family were students. I spent time with the students in the schoolyard, and met them sometimes in their spare time as well. In the tea brakes I would often come to the staffroom to exchange ideas and opinions. I wrote field notes and recorded sometimes conversations with a minidisc recorder.
Not all situations were appropriate for sound recording, nor writing field notes. Author Dag Solstad said that people would constrain themselves if you took notes while talking to them. And it is exactly this natural everyday wisdom that we want to catch as anthropologists. Since informants would be sceptical when I took notes, and became silent when I turned the recorder on, I switched strategy. I rather wrote down the events afterwards, but this limits the accuracy somehow. My field notes was fragmented and contained both interaction data and data from statements. The information was in Norwegian, Swahili and English.
At Mtaa I taught literature, and presented Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. Furthermore I sung with a choir at a boarding school. I taught mainly in English.
As an anthropology student I acquired information about students both from themselves directly, but also from other stakeholders. Sometimes the informants would withhold information or lie about matters. The author Dag Solstad says that it’s not the most important thing if the informants tell the truth, but that the statements are everyday information. I somehow could relate to that. How could I know whether an informant told me the truth or not? It could still be interesting statements and narratives. I used anonymous questioners for more sensitive issues.
Questionnaires
During my fieldwork I got some ideas of how events correlated and corresponded, and tested these claims with
questionnaires. I had multiple choice as well as more open questions. This gave me some quantitative information. After all the major part of this study is based on interaction, discussions and events in Tanzanian schools. Thus, it is a personal study of these topics.
Focus group discussions
A focus group discussion is a «semi structured group discussion with a small selection from a population, where the purpose is to collect in depth information about a given topic» (Lerdal and Karlsson 2008). This method is more dynamic than one to one interviews. I used this method to elaborate certain topics particularly important for the study. I always recorded the discussions.
Interview
I interviewed several stakeholders before and during fieldwork. Some interviews were prepared, but others were improvised. I often had interesting conversations with students while we were waiting for the teacher to arrive. At the end of my stay I conducted life history interview with two of my main informants.
Cell phone
The cell phone was an important mean of communication. My number was not secret and several students contacted me. I wrote down some messages to show how youth use sms language in Tanzania. Every student I knew had their own cell phone. I quickly learned the concept of beeping. The Microsoft researcher Jonathan Donner (2007) wrote in the article The rules of beeping, that it is common to call and then hang up, for two reasons. Either to save money by making the other part call you back, or just to greet someone. To say: «Hi, I’m thinking about you.»
Changing roles
As mentioned, I wanted to see the life though the eyes of the various groups this study addresses. I was met with hospitality and generosity. As white I was often thought of as a tourist. Small children would scream «Mzungu, mzungu!» to me when I passed. Mzungu is used for white people, but originally means one who travels around (Baaz 2002). After the independence there was a general suspicion of Europeans, who were considers spies (ibid.). I got such an accusation in a focus group discussion. A
student asked me:»How can we know you’re not doing this to steal our ideas to exploit us?» He continued to ask if I wanted to steal their brains. I had to argue that to understand is the purpose and goal in itself. Not means to exploit anyone. «Not let it be for purpose, but for the benefit of Africa,» he concluded.
During a discussion about punishment with a student at Mtaa, he showed an understanding of Europe as shown on TV. «We are different from Europeans […] Everyone understands that Europeans have never been caned. I films and on TV you don’t see Europeans caning children, but in Africa and even in China, kids are caned.»
In my host family I was presented as an uncle. I felt at home quickly. Uncle is a large category of friends and remote relatives of a family. At school I observed, discussed, taught, and most significantly, learned a lot. I switched between roles as teacher and student. According to Erving Goffman’s (1971) theories in The presentation of self in everyday life, the classroom is a frontstage, while the cantina and staffroom can be considered backstage. An important divide between frontstage and backstage at Mtaa is that it is mostly spoken Swahili backstage, and English frontstage. The rules of talking in English are also valid in the schoolyard, although they were rarely complied. In chapter 3 I will discuss how language relates to context and roles.
In Chapter 6 I will synthesise the ideas presented in previous chapters, and state what this study adds to the current base of knowledge. Many of the informants had a close relation to their believes, and education and religion were overlapping. Education is religion, and religion is education (Stambach 2006). The students often referred to God when they had exams, though of future studies and if they got ill. Religion was also used to justify corporal punishment.
My purpose is to describe and understand life as a Tanzanian student, and to put these lives in a greater context. I want to see various forms of discipline, through institutions, structures, language, body and religion.
I want to show that corporal punishment is considered necessary to maintain discipline and order. Another claim is that English as language of instruction is positive, and knowledge of English strengthens the chances of a good life. The conceptions may be related, and they have history from the colonial era. Corporal punishment has naturally a longer history from way before the Chagga ethnic group was colonised.