This article investigates the educative practices of African lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTI) activists who contest claims that homosexuality is un- African and imported from the West. We situate this work within a theoretical framework about cultural contestation and how NGOs influence cultural change. Using data from…

The advent of educational policy debate and educational research in the first half of the twentieth century is part of the quest for respectability and influence in the social sciences. There was an increasing quest for "objective" methodologies and data as missionary societies, philanthropic foundations and governments sought reliable…

This article offers an analysis of the dozens using Black feminist theory. The dozens are a ritualized verbal game of insults that historically have used sexual offenses against Black women as the vehicle for insults. Rather than simply viewing the dozens as a cultural phenomenon, the article draws a connection between its occurrence in West…

This article explores critical issues linked to early child development (ECD) professionalism in African childhood contexts in the light of rights-based consideration. Against the backdrop of acculturation being a reality in Africa, it accepts professionalism as a "good thing" for ECD programmes in Africa. The article sketches a portrait…

The tradition of using giant puppets in dance rituals is widespread throughout Africa. Huge puppets can communicate spiritual and moral authority, which is all the more easily accepted because it is delivered with a sense of playfulness. Giant puppets also create unique movement possibilities. This potent combination of symbolic meaning and…

Very often events misfire because people are too involved with a set of premises, on which they have built correct logical systems. They look to their methodology or to their data for the difficulty, when they should examine the premises. Examples are discussed. (RM)

This article reviews some work that illustrates the problem of developing managers in developing nations and draws on experience gained from discussing these issues with African managers, students, and academics in order to consider an alternative way of approaching development in Africa. (Author/CT)

"School-based management" (SBM) rose to become a prominent trend in educational reform in Western countries during the last few decades of the 20th century and has likewise been introduced into a number of Asian and African nations. A key component of SBM is the increase of internal accountability within the school with the aim of…

Examines issues related to risk and culture, with particular emphasis on how risk impinges on children growing up in Africa. Treats risk as cultural-specific and discusses risk in the context of an ecological model. Demonstrates that the systems and the model's recurrent theme of continuity/discontinuity provide a useful structure for…

In this analysis of healing and conversion as two of the most notable and persistent traits of the new religious movements in Africa, healing is described as an indigenous religious category within the context of conversion as a modern permutation of African religion. Religious conversion is most strikingly represented in societies where the…

This study examined the role played by particular intellectual and physical environments on concept formation, focusing on conceptions concerning heat in a group of non-western subjects living in the interior of southern Africa (N. Sotho and Tswana peoples). In addition, these conceptions were examined in three contexts of the subjects' cultural…

Dependency theory, often used to explain continued domination of Third World economics by Western powers, argues that the continued Western control of Third World news flow and even mass media content can be explained by looking at the structures that control mass media institutions. One of these structures, the journalism education system in…

A five-year project that used evidence from a variety of disciplines and cultures to develop a framework to help educational policymakers identify ways of achieving the full range of human potential in a given population is described. The project sponsor is an international non-profit institution dedicated to the cause of disadvantaged children…