Female Teachers, Sexual Harassment, and African Oral Traditional Storytelling

Utilizing the African Oral Traditional Storytelling (AOTS) Framework and African feminist perspectives, this book boldly confronts the pervasive issue of sexual harassment prevalent in schools across Western and Southern Africa, issuing an urgent call for improvement at curriculum and policy level.

This unique, storied work foregrounds the lived experiences of female teachers in senior high schools in Ghana and puts these experiences in conversation with those from across Western and Southern African contexts, making a significant contribution to decolonial practice in knowledge production. Making a compelling and critical contribution to the discourse on social justice in education, chapters amplify marginalized voices and challenge the "hidden curriculum" of gender-based violence, highlighting the urgent need for systemic change in how schools and all educational stakeholders address sexual harassment in educational settings. Combining storytelling, cultural worldviews, policy recommendations, a toolkit for implementing the AOTS Framework in other contexts, and oral performance, this book paves the way for transformative practices that prioritize safety and equity in educational spaces in African regions.

This book will be essential reading for scholars, educators and policymakers in the fields of education policy and politics, curriculum studies, gender studies, and the sociology of education more broadly. The book also responds to the UN’s fourth and fifth SDGs on quality education and gender equality.

Araba Ayiaba Ziekpor Osei-Tutu is a Senior Lecturer, Department of Teacher Education, School of Education and Leadership, College of Education, University of Ghana, Legon.