This study describes the use of literacy--including the written word--in the maintenance and practice of Lukumí, a Diasporic African spiritual tradition. While Lukumí is decidedly orally transmitted, the written word is still a critical part of its contemporary practice. Relying on data collected during participant observation of ceremonies and…

Part of the fourth-grade curriculum in the author's district is the creation of a self-portrait. This is always a challenge for both the students and the author, because it is so difficult for beginners to draw a satisfying drawing of a face, whether it is their own or someone else's. In the past the author tried many formats and materials to…

We review recent developments in the study of culture and personality measurement. Three approaches are described: an etic approach that focuses on establishing measurement equivalence in imported measures of personality, an emic (indigenous) approach that studies personality in specific cultures, and a combined emic-etic approach to personality.…

Every aspect of a community's life and values in indigenous Africa provide the theoretical framework for education. The holistic worldview of the traditional system places a strong emphasis on the centrality of the human element and orature in the symmetrical relationship between life and learning. This article focuses on proverbs and the words…

Food access for Maine's growing African refugee population reflects multiple levels of general access to society. To better understand the challenges and opportunities unique to this community, a multidisciplinary team of students, faculty, and community partners integrated the expertise of local residents with the results of a food assessment of…

This study examines how and why peoples of African descent access and utilize community-based pedagogical spaces that exist outside schools. Employing a theoretical framework that fuses historical methodology and border-crossing theory, the researchers review existing scholarship and primary documents to present an historical examination of how…

In East Africa, no other country has witnessed as great a surge in university institutions as Kenya. The intent of this paper is to explore the persistence of the ethnic configurations in the surge of higher education in Kenya, within the context of the country's history. Outlining the major flashpoints in the country's history will be…

In the last two decades, Spain's Canary Islands have received thousands of undocumented migrants arriving by boat from the coasts of North and West Africa. The sharp increase of unaccompanied minors has presented a particular challenge, as these minors fall under the State's protection system and are entitled to an education and other rights, once…

Diverse education professionals learned about African cultures in a workshop experience by making African masks using authentic symbolism. Analysis of reflections to evaluate the workshop for applicability to participants with and without African heritage showed that both groups expanded their cultural knowledge of traditional African ethnic…

This article discusses the idea of "difference" in relation to "schools of recognition." The analysis is based on a three-year study that mapped the development of the Africentric Alternative School in the Toronto District School Board. Within, we review the concept of difference and juxtapose it with Gilles Deleuze's concept…

This paper will attempt to define a philosophy of adult education for the purpose of workforce development in Southern Africa. The different influences such as Ubuntu and communalism, indigenous education, diversity western philosophy, globalization and technology are explored in the context of the Southern African region.

African mourning of loss of lives in South Africa has been shaped by discursive practices of both traditional African cultures and the sociopolitical developments under apartheid and in post-apartheid South Africa. This article reports on changes in mourning practices on the basis of a literature review and uses a collection of examples to…

Taking the Institute for Housing Studies in Rotterdam as a case study, this paper aims to theorise the ways non-Western, international students construct and negotiate knowledges in Western institutions of higher education. It describes the types of knowledges these students identify as characteristic of their learning abroad, distinguishing…

Namibia has one of the most dehumanising and destructive colonial pasts of any nation in Africa, or, for that matter, the world. Before colonisation, the area now known as Namibia was home to diverse cultural groups. The successive colonial regimes of Germany and South Africa inflicted genocide, brutality and apartheid on the region. Namibia…

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study undertaken with 46 African and African Caribbean men exploring their experiences of fatherhood. Data analysis was informed by Connell's theoretical work on changing gender relations. Findings indicate that fathers' lives were mediated by masculinities, racism, gender, migration and generational…