In this paper, the author attempts to sketch out both an argument for and the outlines of what might be termed an African cultural studies of education. This formation would actually be composed of several fields and discourses that are often taken up as quite distinct, namely critical approaches to education, cultural studies, and African studies. The author puts forward the idea that there are three basic responses that progressive continental African academics currently living in the diaspora have to their encounter with predominantly western constructed discourses of empowerment. The author identified these three responses as appropriation, ambivalence, and alternatives. In the process of articulating what he defines as an African cultural studies of education, he also aims to strengthen this argument by illustrating that these three "A's" of African response characterize the work of Africans in the diaspora in both the field of cultural studies and the field of education.