Education researchers working in sub-Saharan Africa have recently and rapidly expanded the availability of evidence related to the impact of educational interventions on learning outcomes, particularly in preprimary and lower primary education (Ganimian & Murnane, 2016; McEwan, 2015; Popova, Evans, & Arancibia, 2016). Awareness that…

This commentary discusses three articles (Jukes et al., 2017, McCoy et al., 2017, and Aber et al., 2017), which respectively focus on Kenya, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). They all cite poor educational outcomes as a key motivation for developing and implementing new programs, and all three articles provide helpful evidence…

The developing nations of the Americas have historically patterned, and are currently patterning, their educational administration enterprises on the models of their colonizers or on the industrial nations with whom they identify or depend. Yet the imposition of education that is not representative of a country's culture exemplifies cultural…

This paper identifies themes of the Second African Conference on Child Abuse (1993), notes the importance of the breakdown of family structure, and stresses the importance of prevention. Prerequisites for prevention programs in developing countries are considered and development of a macro campaign and local micro efforts is urged. Examples of…

This paper examines the magnitude of the problem of disability facing developing countries; the traditional response to this challenge and its ineffectiveness; the emergence of community-based rehabilitation (CBR); its underlying assumptions and effectiveness in terms of staff training, interagency partnerships, and parental and community…

Part of a program of publications concerning the status and advancement of women coordinated in four journals by the Group for Initiatives on Women and Development, this issue of "Children in the Tropics" focuses on mothers' health. Section I describes factors conditioning the health and nutritional status of women and girls. Discussion…

Factors which influence child development are listed and briefly discussed. These factors are (1) mother's childhood, (2) mother's age, (3) care during pregnancy and delivery, (4) early neonatal factors, (5) birth interval, (6) effect of repeated infection and malnutrition on brain growth and intellectual development, and (7) home environment. The…

In the 1950s and 1960s, donors of international aid attempted to impose a Western, technological form of schooling on the developing nations. In the 1970s, however, rediscovery of a pluralistic concept of intelligence has led donors toward a reappraisal and emphasis on more culture-specific educational interventions. (SJL)

Traditionally, the Indian child has been cherished and reared with an approach to parenting characterized by an easy pace, the absence of set rules, and permission to play freely within the matrix of a large, joint family. Rough toys, fashioned by local craftsmen, have been handed down from generation to generation. But today, India is beset with…

This seminar paper presents an analysis of the many complex issues inherent in planning and implementing those educational interventions designed to accelerate human change so that it matches the pace of external change in traditional societies. After establishing the importance of sensitive periods when learning can be massive and intervention is…

Veraguas province, Panama, is an example of the need to have generalists, not specialists, deal with the interrelated aspects of rural areas in developing nations. Intricate connections between living standards, agricultural production, market and credit structures, land tenure, the political system, the social structure, education, health,…

Seeks to identify rhetorical distinctiveness of the rescue mission as a form of belligerency--examining presidential discourse justifying the 1985 Lebanon intervention, the 1965 Dominican intervention, and the 1983 Grenada intervention. Argues that the distinction is in guilt narrowly assigned to a chaotic scene and the concomitant call for…

The primary purpose of this paper is to set forth the rationale for governments' undertaking of strategies that promote the growth of children. The rationale has three dimensions: economic, humanitarian, and political. The primary focus of this paper is on the economic arguments, although the main humanitarian and political arguments are also…

This paper is the summary report of a seminar which was held in Kenya at the Institute for Development Studies of the University of Nairobi from June 2-19, 1976. The seminar was sponsored by USAID through a contract to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Ten English-speaking African countries, whose responsibilities are related to nutrition…

This collection of conference proceedings contains the opening speeches, committee reports and resource papers on four topics: promoting the integrity of the family; meeting the minimum needs of the family; the role of self-preservation and promotion of the family; and intervention techniques of social workers in favor of rural and urban families.…