Africa

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

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

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."

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

Mangan, J. A. A. 1993. The Imperial Curriculum (RLE Edu H). Hoboken: Taylor & Francis.

Angela Okune: This 1993 volume is a comparative analysis of racial attitudes in the formal schooling of both Britain and its former dominions and colonies. The contributions include chapters looking at experiences in South Africa, Uganda and Kenya. A central theme throughout the work is that a...Read more

Peters, Rebecca Warne, and Claire Wendland. 2016. “Up the Africanist: The Possibilities and Problems of ‘Studying up’ in Africa.” Critical African Studies, October, 1–16.

AO: This article by Peters and Wendland complicates Nadar's concept of "studying up," pointing out the complexity of power hierarchies that go beyond obvious and durable routes to power (e.g. whiteness in humanitarian projects). They argue, this aspect of studying up reveals ethical concerns...Read more

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