Africa

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʾo. 1986. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. London : Portsmouth, N.H: J. Currey ; Heinemann.

Abstract: " Decolonising the Mind is a collection of essays about language and its constructive role in national culture, history, and identity. The book, which advocates for linguistic decolonization, is one of Ngũgĩ’s best-known and most-cited non-fiction publications, helping...Read more

Teferra, Damtew, and Philip G. Altbachl. 2004. “African Higher Education: Challenges for the 21st Century.” Higher Education 47 (1): 21–50.

Angela Okune: This 2004 article by Damtew Teferra and Philip Altbachl focuses on the "problems of African higher education" which they see as including the challenges of funding, management, brain drain and language. The authors propose that recognition of these problems can lead to major...Read more

Mukoma wa Ngugi. 2018. “What Decolonizing the Mind Means Today.” Literary Hub, March 2018.

Angela Okune: This 2018 blog post by Ngugi wa Thiong'o's son, Mukoma articulates the continued relevance of the book. Borrowing literary critic Adam Beach's notion of an "English metaphysical empire," Mukoma highlights how English continues to be a marker of intelligence and class in Kenya (and...Read more

White, Bob W. 1996. “Talk about School: Education and the Colonial Project in French and British Africa (1860-1960).” Comparative Education 32 (1): 9–26.

Abstract: " As a study in comparative colonialism, this research attempts to identify similarities and differences in the French and British models of colonial education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Differences in colonial policy were conditioned to some extent by settlement patterns,...Read more

Bude, Udo. 1983. “The Adaptation Concept in British Colonial Education.” Comparative Education 19 (3): 341–55.

Abstract: "The solution to the problems of education in Africa proposed by Jones and his colleagues was the design of an educational concept adapted to the needs of people, completely oriented towards family and community life. Their proposed 'adapted education' for black Africa would,...Read more

Matandela, Mbali. 2015. “Retrospective : UCT : LGBTQIA The Founders of the #RhodesMustFall Movement (& the Guys) March2015.” BIZLINKS (blog). September 9, 2015.

Angela Okune: This 2015 blog post by fourth year UCT student Mbali Matandela highlights the conscious role that black feminists had in the student protests. She notes: "What I hope for is that people will look back at this movement one day and see how a small group of black feminists...Read more

World Bank. 2016. “Bridge International Academies.” 119876. The World Bank.

Angela Okune: This 2016 brief by the World Bank showcases Bridge International and its education model. The brief states that Bridge is "the first educational organization to address the problem of quality at scale, allowing it to invest heavily in research and technology and to focus...Read more

Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) 2018 Call for Abstract for Graduate Student Conference

This call for abstracts is particularly interesting in its framing because it points to the special importance of "deconstructive" approaches in contexts like "Africa."

Vavrus, Frances. 2005. “Adjusting Inequality: Education and Structural Adjustment Policies in Tanzania.” Harvard Educational Review 75 (2): 174–201.

Angela Okune: In this 2005 article, Frances Vavrus discusses how access to secondary education declined in Tanzania as school fees were introduced and subsidized prices for food were removed during the advent of the IMF structural adjustment programs (SAPs).Read more

Madeira, Ana Isabel. 2005. “Portuguese, French and British Discourses on Colonial Education: Church–State Relations, School Expansion and Missionary Competition in Africa, 1890–1930.” Paedagogica Historica 41 (1–2): 31–60.

Abstract: " This article draws a comparison between the Portuguese in relation to British and French discourses on overseas educational policies at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century until the 1930s. It focuses on three main colonial educational dynamics: school...Read more

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