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- Patron-Client Relationships and Low Education among Youth in Kano, Nigeria
Abstract:
Based on an analysis of original social network data collected from 407
households in an urban community in Northern Nigeria, this article evaluates
whether patronage relationships between households have consequences for children’s
educational attainment. A “social resources” perspective suggests that patronage
ties may serve as a form of social capital that activates upward social mobility
for entire families, thereby yielding more than simple transitory returns on social
connections. An alternative “social constraints” perspective suggests that patronage
ties may have no effects (or negative effects) on the schooling of clients’ children,
since patron-clientage reflects prevailing social inequalities and exists for reasons
other than the promotion of dynastic mobility among clients and their families. In
the case study reported in this article, the latter pattern holds, and the results are interpreted
with reference to the historical record, which shows that a latent function
of patron-clientage is the preservation of intergenerational status immobility.