For a long time, children with special needs were educated along with other regular children in schools. The notion of special education was a Western phenomenon and concept in Nigeria. How were children with special needs educated without special education programs? This article will provide cultural perspectives on issues of disability and care…

This article considers the status of indigenous knowledges as forms of knowledge in the multicultural context of Sudan, through exploration of Sudanese adult education teachers' perceptions of culture, language and knowledge in education. Drawing on critical and poststructural theoretical concepts, cultural discourses in education are shown to…

This article examines how issues of national, Pan-African and tribal identities are handled in Kenyan upper secondary school textbooks for History and Government. Kenya is a multi-ethnic country without a common pre-colonial history. As a result, the historical record does not easily provide a common narrative with which to unify the nation. To…

This paper addresses the dilemma of language in education in African countries with particular reference to Burundi. African languages are still marginalised by colonial languages such as French and English. Looking at other African countries in general and at the case of Burundi in detail, an analysis is made of the adopted policies aimed at…

As a 26-year-old English teacher in 1958, Chinua Achebe had no idea that the book he was writing would become a literary classic, not only in Africa but also throughout the world. He could only try to articulate the feelings he had for his countrymen and women. Achebe had a burning desire to tell the true story of Africa and African humanity. The…

Although it is generally accepted that music is universal, we can imagine that every culture has a way of describing or talking about its music. The purpose of this article is to examine some aspects peculiar to the musical traditions of the Anioma people of Southern Nigeria from indigenous perceptions of their cultural modalities. The focus is on…

The purpose of this study is to understand how two African immigrant teachers to the United States experience cultural conflicts and whether/how their cultural and indigenous beliefs are brought forward into science classrooms. While there is a wealth of research conducted on the experiences of various immigrant groups, there is a dearth of…

Building on a "critical post-colonial multicultural perspective" and on "whiteness studies" that go beyond recognising cultural diversity towards challenging narratives that construct and exclude the other, the present article outlines impacts and challenges of the enactment of a recent Brazilian government educational law to…

Namibia is a southern African country with national level policies promoting community inclusion and inclusive education. Despite these policies, people with disabilities are often excluded from schools and community life. This study explores the nuanced cultural beliefs about the causes of disability in Namibia, and the impacts of such beliefs on…

Among the Maasai of southern Kenya, child circulation in the form of adoption is widespread. It persists despite increased family nuclearization and pervasive sedentarizing discourses depicting "modern" family life as small, settled and nuclear. Through the perspectives and experiences of 10 families having undergone adoption, this…

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…

This phenomenological research report from analysis of interviews with 18 participants focuses on the theme of transferring an age-old initiation-into-manhood circumcision ritual to future generations of Kenyan Kikuyu who are living in the US. We identified three subthemes and found a strong indication that, while personally meaningful to the…

The Sankofa Drum and Dance Ensemble is a Ghanaian drum and dance ensemble that focusses on music in the Ewe tradition. It is based in an elementary school in the Greater Toronto Area and consists of students in Grade 4 through Grade 8. Students in the ensemble study Ghanaian traditional Ewe drumming and dancing in the oral tradition. Nine students…

The liberation of Africa and its peoples from centuries of racially discriminatory colonial rule and domination has far reaching implications for educational thought and practice. The transformation of educational discourse in Africa requires a philosophical framework that respects diversity, acknowledges lived experience and challenges the…

I explore the role and value of African music in education, by drawing from a study of Grade 5 learners at a school in the Eastern Cape, which was designed to answer the question: Could Xhosa children in South Africa sing Xhosa indigenous songs significantly better than European folk songs? The experimental group received instruction in Xhosa…