Manful makes connections between school architecture and social class in Ghana

When it comes to social class in Africa, the architectures of education — both tangible and intangible — play a significant role, argues Kuukuwa Manful, assistant professor of architecture, in a new article published in African Studies Review Journal.

Based on four years of research and a paper that won the 2023 ASA Graduate Student Paper prize, “Building Classes: Secondary Schools and Sociopolitical Stratification in Ghana” establishes and investigates connections between the architecture of school buildings and social class in Ghana.

Although it is widely accepted that social class in Africa is defined not just by economic metrics but also by social perceptions and individual identifications, Manful notes not much research has been conducted into the mechanisms through which Africans form class perceptions and identifications. Focusing on secondary schools in Ghana, Manful makes an argument about how people make sense of their sociopolitical positioning.

The article is part of a larger book project, The Architecture of Education in Ghana, which uses a multidisciplinary approach that straddles politics, architecture, and history to examine the sociopolitical causes and consequences of secondary school buildings in Ghana.

Read the article at African Studies Review Journal.