In social sciences and in pedagogy, the role of peers, peer groups and social relationships in successful learning and belonging is not unknown. This often refers to small group or pair learning and its positive effects. This paper addresses the topic from the perspective of African traditions, community values and their transmission in…

This essay examines the changing range of descriptors available for black South African experience from the 1960s through to the present and shows the changing implications of "black", "African", "citizen" and "human being", with particular reference to the formative structures of education, and the enabling…

From a particular vantage point, as an African-born scholar with a politics to affirm my Black subjectivity and Indigeneity in a diasporic context, my article engages a (re)theorization of Blackness for decolonial politics. Building on existing works of how Black scholars, themselves, have theorized Blackness, and recognizing the fluid,…

The role of music in Grenada, West Indies has traditionally been to pass on knowledges, values, and ideals; and to provide a means of connecting to one another through expressing commonality of experience, ancestry, and nationhood. This paper explores how Eric Matthew Gairy, during his era of political leadership in Grenada (1951-1979), exploited…

Ogbu and Simon's (1998) and Ogbu's (2003) cultural-ecological theoretical framework postulates that voluntary immigrants, those who chose to migrate to a new land, would perform well academically because of their perceived beliefs that they could get a good education and could succeed more in their "new" land of opportunity than in their…

Among African cultures, the creative process is regarded as the most important because it is usually done jointly as a culturally shared communal activity. For Africans, art is normally functional and the artifacts carry more meaning when they are in use. This paper focuses on the communal making of art, rather than just the aesthetic appreciation…

Examination of representative stories told by black American children of West African descent in South Carolina shows that specific cultural motifs have been preserved in the oral tradition of black communities. Typical stories are tales of the supernatural, such as the Hag story about mortals who shed their skin at night to do evil deeds.…

The construction of hypotheses concerning blacks in America requires an understanding of two enduring influences on collective black experience: (1) whites' treatment of blacks as slaves and (2) West African culture that helped to shape black adaptation to the conditions engendered by slavery. White racist attitudes and the psychological distance…

Africentrism is a culturally grounded philosophical perspective that reflects the intellectual traditions of both African and African American culture. Africentrism is understood as an attempt to reclaim a sense of identity, community, and power in the face of Eurocentric cultural hegemony. Four orientations to Africentrism are observed: the…

The black family is the primary socializing agent of the black child and, thus, the primary educator. The culture of blacks in America, in which the child is steeped, is unique, complex and rich-the result of a convergence and fusion of African, American, and European influences. In its education of the black child, the black family must deal,…