Although soft skills are considered important for quality education, there is little consensus on which skills matter for which populations and few cross-culturally validated measures. We propose a conceptual and methodological remedy to this quandary through an investigation of "agency" as an outcome measure for adolescent girls' life…

Located about 80 miles north of New York City, Anderson Center for Autism has long provided comprehensive educational, vocational, and residential services for children and adults with autism spectrum disorder. Rooted in the use of applied behavior analysis and other evidence-based practices, the nonprofit helps children and adults communicate,…

Background: More than half of the children in the world experience some form of interpersonal violence every year. As compared with high-income countries, policy responses in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are limited due to resource constraints and paucity of evidence for effective interventions to reduce violence against children in…

In countries with a high concentration of youth with low literacy levels, the policy and programming task related to education and training is particularly daunting. This note briefly presents policies and practices which have been put in place to provide vulnerable youth with literacy and life skills education. It is based on a multi-country…

This paper attempts to critically examine the approaches that were employed by Africans in their knowledge, skills and attitudes acquisition before, after and during colonialisation of the continent. The paper looks at three distinctive epochs from which the perfect understanding of how learning in Africa transformed could be concluded. It is…

Much of the research on orphan and vulnerable children in sub-Saharan Africa has focused on their risks and vulnerabilities. This article describes the "funds of knowledge" (Moll and Greenberg, 1990) and means of acquiring new knowledge of children living in child-headed households in Uganda's Rakai District. Using ethnographic methods,…

Illustrates the groundwork that has been laid to pave the way for significant alterations in African educational systems. Describes the impetus provided by the UNESCO/UNICEF Cooperative Program for a universal education that incorporates formal, non-formal, and informal learning. The program began in Eastern Africa in 1972. (Author/RK)

This paper, focusing on schooling for children in Africa, recommends a pedagogy that begins with the practical, everyday experiences of the child and proceeds by extension toward more abstract ideas. It is pointed out that the basic areas of survival--food, clothing, and shelter--could be treated in courses in agriculture, home economics, and…

Objectives: This study documents the extent and impact of perceived patterns of behavior in a sample of youths of the streets of Ibadan, Nigeria, with the purpose of implementing a Life Skills Educational (LSE) intervention. Method: The study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection. Qualitatively, two Focus Group…

This instructional guide for Sesotho (spoken in several areas of Africa by about 6 million people) is designed for the training of Peace Corps volunteers in Africa. The first two chapters outline Sesotho phonology (phonetics, articulation, and speech sounds and patterns not present in English) and tone and length, grammatical structure (class and…

This kit consists of nine booklets: an introduction and eight topical texts, each of which is made up of excerpts from materials about the lives of women from Latin America, Africa, and England. The kit is intended for use by women in English-as-a-Second-Language classes, literacy groups, and other women's groups, as a source of ideas for…