Rape and sexual assault are among the most serious crimes in Ghana, leaving victims with profound physical, emotional, and psychological scars. Despite public awareness campaigns and media reporting, sexual violence continues to occur in society, highlighting the urgent need for vigilance, education, and justice. Sex is meant for two consenting adults. Consent is not just…
Every society has norms, which are rules that guide behavior. One important norm in Ghana concerns the use of the left hand in social interactions. Traditionally in Ghana, using the left hand in social interactions can be problematic. Giving something to someone or receiving something with the left hand is considered rude or insulting. Growing…
Punishment is a central feature of every organized society, including Ghana. While rewards are designed to encourage conformity and socially approved behavior, punishment exists to negatively sanction deviant behavior. When individuals act in ways that align with societal norms, they are often rewarded through praise, status, social recognition, or material benefits. When they violate those…
Cohabitation refers to an intimate arrangement in which a man and a woman live together in a shared residence without being formally married. While cohabitation has become increasingly common in many contemporary societies, it is generally frowned upon in Akan society and regarded as socially improper. Within the Akan marital system, there is a strong…
Irresponsible alcohol consumption has become a growing social problem in Ghana, with serious consequences for individuals, families, and communities. Some drinkers spend a large proportion of their income on alcohol, leaving little or nothing for basic necessities such as food, clothing, rent, medication, and utilities. For those with spouses and dependent children, excessive spending on…
Littering is a serious problem in Ghana. Across cities, towns, and rural communities, many people indiscriminately throw away empty drink bottles, plastic containers, plastic wraps, paper, and leftover food on the ground. Streets, gutters, open spaces, and markets are increasingly turned into informal dumping grounds. Beyond its environmental impact, littering is an aesthetic blight. It…
Witchcraft is commonly understood in Ghana as a supernatural power believed to be possessed by some individuals, enabling them to influence the behavior, health, fortune, or misfortune of others—either as victims or beneficiaries. Belief in witchcraft and witches remains widespread and deeply embedded in Ghanaian society. Although no comprehensive national survey exists to measure belief…
The world today is full of religions. By merely casting a cursory glance around us, we encounter Christians and Christianity, Hindus and Hinduism, Muslims and Islam, atheists, agnostics, traditionalists, Zionists, Jews and Judaism, Confucianists and Confucianism, Shintos and Shintoism. Religion, as sociologists and comparative cultural anthropologists remind us, is a social institution and a cultural…
Across Africa, myths and misunderstandings about bedwetting continue to affect children and families. In Ghana, many parents still believe that children who wet their beds at night are lazy or unwilling to wake up to urinate. As a result, some children are physically disciplined. In past decades, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, children who…
Origins and Cultural Heritage Professor Dr. Mensah Adinkrah, Professor of Sociology, Criminology, and Criminal Justice, is a native of Kwahu-Nkwatia in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Kwahu (also rendered as Kwawu) refers both to a geographical area and to a distinct Akan subgroup inhabiting the region. The Kwahu are part of the larger Akan people…
The early years of Ghana’s independence, particularly between 1957 and the mid-1960s, reveal the gradual emergence of state control over the media. While independence initially generated optimism about press freedom, archival newspaper records, government policies, and editorial patterns show that signs of state influence appeared almost immediately. These early developments shaped the long-term trajectory of…
In Ghana, success is loudly celebrated, quietly envied, and endlessly debated. Yet, beneath the noise of social media displays, church testimonies, political slogans, and family expectations lies a deeper question we rarely pause to ask ourselves honestly: what does success truly mean to you? Not to your parents. Not to your pastor. Not to society,…
The portrayal of Kwame Nkrumah as a national hero was not simply a spontaneous public perception—it was carefully shaped, amplified, and sustained through newspapers and other media channels during the late colonial and early post-independence periods. In the Gold Coast, now Ghana, the press played a decisive role in constructing Nkrumah’s public image as a…
In the years following Ghana’s independence in 1957, one of the most influential political and intellectual concepts articulated by Kwame Nkrumah was “neo-colonialism.” For Nkrumah, independence did not mark the end of foreign domination in Africa. Instead, he argued that a new, more subtle form of control had emerged—one that operated through economic power, political…
No one is born with knowledge. Human beings are born with the capacity to learn, but what they eventually know—how they speak, think, behave, believe, and interpret the world—is acquired from society. Knowledge, values, attitudes, and skills are socially produced and socially transmitted. By the time a Ghanaian child reaches the age of eighteen, that…
