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Purpose: This paper aims to confront some of the many facets of academic freedom as a whole, including the shared concerns with Western academia, its relationship to the politics of Arab society and the relevance of these issues within local political domains. It attempts to profile the problems hindering societal progress beyond the seemingly defined truth. While this subject has many facets, this article only examines academic freedom within the scope of knowledge and inquiry derived from the revered text of the Qur'an, including its relation to democracy and radicalism. It is an effort to refocus Arab intellectual dialogue on its ailing academia. It also argues for Arab society to reclaim its core culture of Islam as an enabler of learning aside from the Eurocentric perspective of academic freedom. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses an expository and persuasive format in its novel perspective. This expository form sets out the argument of academic freedom as being indigenous to Arab-Islamic heritage and pursues a persuasive statement for its resolution. This format outlines the main familiar aspects of academic freedom and lays out its components within Arab-Islamic history. Findings: This paper provides insights and arguments supporting its main theory. It suggests that Arabs must judiciously consider what their education will look like and accomplish in the next 100 years, considering the sociopolitical status quo and the chances of changing it. It argues that academic freedom is indigenous to Arab-Islamic early history, academia and knowledge governance. Therefore, Arab academia must not ignore its heritage to examine what hinders education and intellectualism. It concludes with the point that reinstalling a culture of knowledge will create a relevant democracy. Research limitations/implications: The implications for research, practice and society are vast. Further academic freedom research would redefine terms of processes, change the role of academic leadership, debunk locally dominated politics, introduce learning-first policies, balance inequalities in gender, abolish academic tribalism and move past colonialist ideas and predominance. For researchers, this point of view would open doors for new scholastic approaches. Practical implications: This paper includes practical implications that stem from an approach that would provoke practical possibilities and call for more academic conversations. Further conversations should explore and debate the gaps in Arab-Islamic knowledge history. The Global South of the Arab World or the Middle East and Northern Africa/Southwest Asia North Africa region could consider drafting a contemporary MENA account of a Magna Charta Libertatis Academicae or a Magna Charta Universitatum that is galvanized by Arab revivable heritage. Moreover, It would be productive if Western universities that operate in the Arab World would also take an active role in denouncing undemocratic practices and not merely operate as commercial enterprises. Social implications: Realizing academic freedom in Arab institutions will have a positive spillover effect on Arab society, including thriving and free media, freedom of speech and gender issues. Academic freedom is one of the main elements in structuring free political culture that adhere to the principles of tolerance. Academic freedom is necessary for showing all contesting ideas in a better light and, ultimately, achieving a form of intellectual equipoise. Originality/value: This paper concerns academic freedom in the Arab-Islamic World. The majority of academic freedom scholarship today assumes a Western democratic context in discussing or even arguing against it. The paper's focus is a novel expansion of that literature.

This paper challenges the dominant patronizing approach to youth and media in the Middle East and argues that the calls for censorship of youth media exposure are obsolete and counterproductive. It argues that although censorship advocates have a legitimate concern over media risks, their approaches are ineffective, short-lived and alienating, disregarding the potential that media hold for young people. The author believes that elites in MENA should shift their focus to empower youth to use media to learn; to voice their worldviews and experiences; and to work for the betterment of themselves and their societies. The paper recommends two strategies: (1) the adoption of a proactive approach towards youth and media through the introduction of critical media literacy in education in MENA, and (2) the collaboration between the government, businesses, and the rest of society to advance the pedagogical resources of critical media literacy for Arabic speaking youth and educators.

In this paper, an attempt was made to locate the role of internationalisation in African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It is argued that comprehensive international, intercultural, and global dimensions in the affairs of African tertiary institutions provide for a more nuanced and diversified higher education landscape. Through a desk study approach, dwelling mainly on existing literature, the paper examines the issues of internationalisation from the perspectives of diversity and inclusion, as well as the roles of the relevant key players within those institutions to practically deliver internationalisation strategies that will put the institution on a global pedestal while remaining locally and regionally relevant. More importantly, strategies for achieving comprehensive internationalisation are discussed drawing inferences from literature and documentary sources. The interrogation of these sources in relation to the expectations of the current and future HEIs to remain socially relevant and sustainable is carried out. HEIs in Africa must contribute to socio-economic change and engage with their quad-helix and eco-system partners to ensure that high end skills training, knowledge production, entrepreneurship and innovation are accelerated. In so doing, African HEIs must embrace diversity in its fullness including welcoming differences in gender, race, culture, nationality and providing platforms of engagement that allow for inclusion, and breaking silos to allow for a nuanced agenda of internationalisation.

The paper addresses the impact of COVID-19 on vocational education and training, seeking to discern the outline of possible directions for its future development within the debates about VET responses to the pandemic. The discussion is set in its socio-economic context, considering debates that engage with the social relations of care and neo-liberalism. The paper analyses discourses that have developed around VET across the world during the pandemic, illustrating both possible continuities and ruptures that may emerge in this field, as the health crisis becomes overshadowed in public policy by the prioritisation of economic recovery and social restoration. The paper concludes that, alongside the possibility of a narrowing of VET to its most prosaic aims and practices, the health crisis could also lead to a re-conceptualisation that develops its radical and emancipatory possibilities in both the global south and north.

This paper argues that the progressive, revisionist reaction within Catholic education and schooling, as well as within Catholicism at large, to the challenge of modernity is a mistake. In view of modernity's malaises, it advocates instead the affirmation or reaffirmation of the ideal of traditional Catholicism as the only authentic response for Catholics to modern progress. In order to justify the distinctiveness of a traditional Catholic identity and educational project, the paper offers an outline of a distinctively Thomistic educational philosophy. Its defense of the (re)affirmation of the ideal of traditional Catholic education and schooling in secularized society is neither ultra-conservative nor romantic.

Colonizers' educational system produced new seeds for cultivation of new culture. This reproduction effected the British colonies culturally and religiously especially to Arica and South Asia. The natives of two continents transformed slowly and gradually through the western education system. The Britain opened new schools in colonies to teach the natives in English language. In the result of new educational system a hybrid culture emerged which led towards resistance and transformation of the natives. It affected all the aspects of natives' lives, especially cultural and religious sides. The food, cloths, social norms and traditions also changed through the inculcation of new culture. It also affected the gender based relations and women started demand for equal rights. The changes occurred, were the result of the education introduced by the colonizers. Later on, appropriation of English language affected the natives' culture and transformed them to a large extent. Religious conversation and transformation also overshadows the natives' culture and religions. The natives' social norms and traditions changed with the passage of time. Moreover, there will be no wrong to say that education played a vital role in molding the psyche of the natives. West established superiority over East by occupying the academia. They have given blow to various theories which they generated and practiced in East. Educational transformation played a vital role to transform the world from bi-polar to uni-polar. This research paper is an investigation that to what extent the religious conversion and western education played its role in transforming the natives. How it generated independence, interdependence and dependence in the world?

In a shrinking world, in which a neo-liberal discourse has permeated sub-Saharan African higher education, critical reflection is required to assess the merits and demerits of globalisation. Research, intensive discussion and hearings conducted over a two-year period by the Task Force on Higher Education and Society, convened by the World Bank and United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for the purpose of exploring the future of higher education in the developing world, led to the conclusion that without more and better higher education, developing countries would find it increasingly difficult to benefit from the global knowledge economy. A decade later, we argue for a radical change in the traditional discourse on globalisation because of the emergence of countries such as China, South Africa, India, and Brazil as global players in the world economy. These emerging global powers, reframe the political and imperial philosophy at the epicentre of globalisation discourse--an economic creed, through their mutual consultation and coordination on significant political issues. Their economic and military capabilities enable them to influence the trade regime and thereby strengthen the voice of the developing world as a whole. In relation to this paper's inquiry, the cooperation of these emerging powers gives the free enfranchised people of the world an opportunity to choose a different path of international relations (internationalisation) formed on more liberal lines, as opposed to the neo-liberal economic rationality of globalisation. This paper therefore examines globalisation and internationalisation of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa, a field in which increased knowledge production and distribution open up opportunities for users, institutions and societies. Against a background of chronic economic uncertainty we examine the influence of major international institutions on the direction of higher education, in particular teacher education. Drawing on relevant literature and our own experience, reflexively, we argue that the tendency, towards free market regulation ideologies, privileges neo-liberal global knowledge discourses, such that they impose on higher education a need to respond across a range of fields.

The ideals of education in Ujamaa philosophy as enunciated by Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the founding president of Tanzania, are neglected phenomena in African education. In about fifty decades of offering education in Africa, from the end of colonialism to the present, education has not enabled Africans to be self-reliant and to live peacefully as brothers and sisters. The paper analyses Nyerere's ideals embedded in Ujamaa philosophy and realises that African education portrays a neglect of the ideals of Nyerere and this does not auger well for the continent. The continent requires education that can make it self-reliant in economics, politics and cultural practices. It calls upon African educationists to rethink and revisit Nyerere's ideals with a view to charting appropriate education for the continent. Three action plans to be carried out by African philosophers of education that focus on constant reviews on interpreting Nyerere's ideas, political participation and forming organisations which specifically deal with African philosophy of education are posited. It is recommended that more interpretation of Nyerere's ideas should be a continuous process. What also warrants further research is combining academic work with vocational training.

In this philosophical paper, we investigate the project of doing philosophy with children in Africa. While the philosophy for children program has its roots in the Anglo-Saxon world, we contend that it can sit well in Africa if given an African outlook. We challenge Eurocentric specialists, who are attempting a wholesale introduction of the Matthew Lipman model of philosophy for children in schools in Africa, to realign their perspective. This paper takes a critical look at the currency of the post-colonial and Africanization agendas in education by exploring the plausibility of a uniquely African philosophy for children program. We argue that for any philosophy to be African, it should be an amalgamation of the traditional and the modern in order to epitomize the twenty-first century African existential conditions that ameliorate educational practices previously subject to Eurocentric hegemony.

This paper describes a decolonial perspective on material agency in the context of STEM education and application. Using the framework of generative STEM, we engaged in case studies with African, African American, South American, and Native American educational communities. This research shows that understanding material agency based on Indigenous knowledge systems can open a rich source of research and education content. Using a suite of simulations, Culturally Situated Design Tools, we apply this body of research to the classroom. One important theoretical conclusion is the contrast to a "content agnostic" position. A generative framework instead offers a robust blend of user agency and instructional guidance. The outcomes indicate statistically significant and notable improvement for STEM skills and interests. We conclude with a contrast to the quantum epistemology approach to posthumanism. We show that the Indigenous material agency framework in generative STEM is a better fit to decolonial aspirations, and that it offers a more transformative vision for the potential role of STEM in transitioning from an extractive to a generative economy.

Due to the particular experiences of the African continent and its peoples, and the myriad of ways these experiences have been interpreted, appropriated, and reclaimed, there are a pressing series of epistemological, pedagogical, and ethical challenges, especially for those who wish to include African content in predominantly non-Africanist spaces, such as large survey courses. Ensuring an appropriate level and breadth of knowledge, as well as attention to the intricacies and cartographies of cultural specificity, while remaining attuned to the politics of racialization and colonization can be an extremely difficult balance to maintain. For historians working at the intersection of the analytical concepts of global and international, teaching African content can be an even more perilous journey. There are three main approaches to transnational history--that is, histories that traverse national borders and narratives: world history, international history, and global history. This paper examines the specific intellectual and pedagogical challenges of teaching "Africa" in non-Africanist contexts, specifically introductory global and international history. It draws on insights gathered from a decade of working at the intersection of international history and International Relations (IR), with a focus on twentieth-century African liberation movements, as well as from several years of teaching global and international history to undergraduates.

This paper provides an overview of virtue development in the training of Catholic Sisters in Africa and showcases how virtue attainment positions them to be exceptional leaders that promote advances in the state of education in Africa. Additionally, the authors briefly discuss the role of the African Sisters Education Collaborative (ASEC), an international nonprofit organization, in the strengthening of this population's leadership abilities. Three success stories are presented which demonstrate how the education-related work of Catholic Sisters in Africa across traditional and nontraditional settings, is catalyzing positive change in communities and contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa.

The transition from one-party rule and other forms of authoritarianism to multiparty democracy in the 1990s has had a profound impact on the organisation and role of student politics in Africa. Against the background of student involvement in African politics in the twentieth century, leading up to student participation in Africa's "second liberation" in the early 1990s, the paper analyses the organisation of student governments, student representation in institutional and national governance, student unionism and the emergence of political parties in student politics in the 2000s. Proceeding from Munene's argument regarding a shift in oppositional politics in Africa away from students to multiparty politics, this paper finds that party politics is also increasingly implicated in African student politics with varied results. The paper concludes by proposing a tentative framework for understanding the impact of high levels of resource exchange between student leaders and political parties on student representation.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss, in-depth, how solar electricity can be developed and used to tackle grid electricity-related problems in African countries suffering from unreliable and inadequate grid electricity. Design/methodology/approach: The paper discusses in depth the current status of grid electricity in Africa continent and suggested solar electricity as an alternative cost-effective method to the existing grid electricity problem in remote areas. An extensive analysis of the major contribution of solar electricity in various sectors such as economic, health, communication, social and environmental benefits is provided. The paper concludes with a discussion on how solar power generation can be developed. Findings: The paper shows that in developed countries where ICT has been applied extensively, ICT offers increased opportunities for sustainable economic development and plays a critical role in rapid economic growth, productive capacity improvements, education, government, agriculture and international competitiveness enhancement. The paper has pointed out that ICT has yet to make significant impact in most African countries due to lack of reliable and adequate electricity. Solar electricity has been seen as the most cost-effective way of generating electricity, especially in remote rural areas, for ICT devices. For the widespread of solar power generation in Africa, various strategies have been identified which include training of qualified solar engineers and technicians, establishing PV markets and business modes, introduction of solar energy education in schools and universities, political leaders appreciating solar electricity as one of the major energy component, lowering initial cost of the PV technology, availability of finance mechanisms for rural communities, import tax exemption and African countries regarding rural electricity as one of the basic needs. Practical implications: The paper shows that the problems of lack of qualified solar technicians and established PV markets and business modes (especially in remote areas), lack of solar energy education in schools have to be addressed before the benefits of ICT in Africa can be seen. Other issues include African countries appreciating solar electricity as one of the major energy component, lowering initial cost of the PV technology, availability of finance mechanisms for customers, import tax exemption and African countries regarding rural electricity as one of the basic needs like food, shelter and clothing. Overhaul of existing systems needs to take place in order to provide the means to deal with some of these issues. Originality/value: Availability of reliable electrical energy remains crucial for development of ICT in rural African countries. Solar electricity is clearly one of the most promising prospects to the grid electricity problem in African countries because most African countries lie in the sunshine belt. The paper raises awareness about this in a unique way and suggests some novel measures about increasing the availability of solar systems for solar power generation. It is anticipated that the increases in solar power generation, especially in remote areas, will increase the use and application of ICT in various sectors.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region of the world most affected by HIV & AIDS, accounting for two-thirds of the global burden of the pandemic. People with disabilities are regarded as a high-risk group for HIV but have been largely neglected in programmes of education, treatment and support. This paper examines the possibilities for a learning dialogue between the HIV & AIDS and disability movements in an African context. It draws on a three-country research study into HIV & AIDS and disability in Uganda, Zambia and South Africa. The research made use of multi-case study approach based on a range of data, including interviews, focus groups, site observations and documentary analysis. The paper presents a model for articulating learning across these social movements by describing best learning practices and examining struggle milestones in the HIV & AIDS and disability movements, as well as cross-cutting priorities that apply to both the AIDS and disability movements. Drawing on theories of social movement learning and intersectionality, it argues for the importance of crosscutting dialogue on a range of themes and in various formats between the two social movements. (Contains 1 figure.)

Mission schools in Africa in the first half of the twentieth century were in many ways microcosms of the great educational debates of the times. The objectives of policies regarding access, governance and curriculum were part of a historical evolution of mission education but they were also increasingly a reflection of significant new trends that were to reshape the theory and practice of colonial education. New forms of educational research and professional expertise were to play an ever-increasing role in shaping the forms and content of the education provided. The brief of the mission churches was to meet with the increasing demand for schooling. Church and state gradually expanded their cooperation in the field as the costs of education outstripped the resources of the missions and the demand for mass education came to be linked to nationalist demands for political and economic rights. This paper is concerned to map the background to those international influences that shaped the policy and practices of mission education and the increasing engagement of colonial governments with the field of education. It addresses the question of the worldwide Protestant mission church's response to the changing political, social and economic environment of the first half of the twentieth century. In particular it seeks to explore how mission initiatives shaped thinking about education in Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America by the 1930s. It also attempts to situate those issues within a wider educational framework by linking them to the emergent debate concerning pragmatism and utilitarianism in regard to progressive education in the USA and the quest for social democratic education in the United Kingdom and Europe as part of a response to socialism, nationalism and totalitarianism. In short, the paper explores the influence of the Christian mission churches with regard to social policy, in general, and the provision of education, in particular, during the interwar years, with special reference to areas influenced by the work of the International Missionary Council. At a time when there was a crisis of support for "foreign missions" how did the debates between fundamentalist-evangelicals and supporters of a "social gospel" transform themselves into debates regarding the role of missions in non-Western societies? And how did these essentially ecclesiastical/theological issues come to influence public policy, specifically educational policy, in the long term? The conclusions are that mission churches had a very significant influence on the shaping of educational thinking in the colonial and imperial context at a time when state influence in the sector was still often quite weak. The origins of the conference and research culture that has informed educational policy since the establishment of the United Nations Organization had its roots in the broad context of the Charter of the League of Nations, with a meeting of religious and secular goals, prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Between 1910 and 1939 there was a significant history of educational reform and community development that has only been partially documented in relation to its global significance. This is an attempt to build a framework for understanding the nature of those changes and what was achieved. The investigation is conducted through an exploration of the three great World Mission Conferences of the International Missionary Council (IMC) held at Edinburgh (1910), Jerusalem (1928) and Tambaram, India (1938). The attempts of Christian churches to engage with dramatic social changes associated with industrialisation, urbanisation, poverty, cultural change and the rise of anti-colonialism, with specific regard to the field of educational policy, are documented and analysed. (Contains 5 boxes and 114 footnotes.)

This paper's principal purpose is to explore the range of ways in which African universities act as public institutions--i.e. how they both are shaped by and influence the social, political and economic contexts in which they are situated. In particular, it considers the multiple dimensions, often resulting in tensions in contexts of poverty, instability and radical transformation, of African universities as actors in politics, civil society and the public sphere. Drawing on recent projects and discussions in which the author took part, the paper tries in particular to explain how the degraded state of most universities in the region which began in the late 1970s and into the 1980s should not be taken to mean that they had become irrelevant to the societies and polities in which they were embedded. Examples are offered of how higher education institutions, and especially the major public universities (often of colonial origin), have often remained key sites for upward mobility strategies, critique and mobilisation on behalf of political change even in the face of authoritarian and corrupt regimes, in contexts of weakened national economies, and even when higher education (primarily encapsulated in public universities) fell out of favour of multilateral and bilateral cooperation agencies. In conclusion, the paper discusses current initiatives by international donors and development agencies to revitalise higher education in Africa, and ensure an "expansion of tertiary institutions constructed as sites for personal advancement and private benefit" (The World Bank 2002) and how their managerial and cost-effective orientations may thin out the crucial public good dimension of African universities. (Contains 12 notes.)

This paper is based on research into the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa. The research investigated whether, through being active members of this social movement, HIV-positive activists learn things they could not otherwise learn about their status and the epidemic, and how they put such knowledge to use. We show how activists develop a critical understanding of the underlying causes of their ill health and its link to economic poverty and global politics. The paper concludes by suggesting that adult educators can assume direct responsibility for poverty reduction by working in and with social movements.

This paper examines the life history narratives of a group of 12 black and white male and female undergraduate students at a historically white Afrikaans medium university, now undergoing its own transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. Conceptualizations of identity and discourse across four elements of context, setting, situated activity and self are employed to examine their accounts. Three framing discourses, comprising the official storyline of a rainbow nation and new higher education policies, the formal storyline of institutional change, and the informal space of relationships and interactions are used to analyse student narratives in terms of how they produce, reproduce and transform race and identity. What emerges is a complicated picture in which identities cannot be simply read off either from the official discourse or from colour and culture as the levels of discourse articulate and collide with a history of racial separateness and context and setting, with particular identity effects. What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and in this period? And what varieties are coming to prevail? In what ways are they selected and formed, liberated and repressed, made sensitive and blunted? ( Mills, 1959 , p. 7)

In addressing issues related to problems of democratisation in Africa, this paper attempts to relate the issue to the need for citizenship education and the role that can play in social development. Citizenship should be central to the formation of viable civil societies that claim a tangible stake in national public spaces in post-Cold War Africa. These and related topics are discussed relative to new possibilities that could lead to the full realisation of the concept as well as the practice of enfranchised citizenship and inclusive social development in aspiring democracies in the Sub Saharan African context. The complexity of the development "problematique" that Sub-Saharan Africa is facing is unique in that it is multi-dimensional, but above all else, politically located. It is, therefore, central to our discussions here that to correct the continent's current schemes of underdevelopment, pragmatic schemes of governance must be achieved. To do that, we are suggesting, new possibilities of citizenship education should be formulated for the general African scene in general, and for democratising but still both institutionally and economically weakened Zambia.

Transitional justice and education both occupy increasingly prominent space on the international peacebuilding agenda, though less is known about the ways they might reinforce one another to contribute towards peace. This paper presents a cross-national analysis of truth commission (TC) reports spanning 1980-2015, exploring the range of educational work taken on by one of the most prominent forms of transitional justice. We find that TC engagement with education is increasing over time and that TCs are incorporating the task of "telling the truth about education" into their work. However, when TCs engage with education, they tend to recommend forwards looking reforms, for instance decontextualised human rights and peace education. We argue that this limits the contribution that TCs might make towards positive peace by failing to use their backwards looking, truth telling work to insist on transformation in the educational sector.

Background Achieving financial risk protection for the whole population requires significant financing for health. Health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are plagued with persistent underfunding, and recent reductions in official development assistance have been registered. To create fiscal space for health, the pursuit of efficiency gains and exploring innovative health financing for health seem attractive. This paper sought to synthesize available evidence on the nature of innovative health financing instruments, mechanisms and policies implemented in Africa. We further reviewed the factors that hinder or facilitate implementation, the lessons learnt on the structure, the development process and the implementation. Methods We conducted a systematic scoping review of the literature to analyze the nature, type, and factors impacting the implementation of innovative health financing mechanisms in the World Health Organization (WHO) African region. Results Innovative health financing mechanisms are increasing in the WHO African region as a result of international policy, the need to improve healthy eating and social life of the populace, advocacy and the availability of international mechanisms to which countries can subscribe. The 41 documents included in this review reported ten innovative financing mechanisms in 43 out of the 47 WHO Africa region member states. The most common mechanisms include an excise tax on tobacco products (43 countries) and alcoholic beverages and spirits (41 countries), airline ticket levy (18 countries), sugar-based beverages tax (seven countries), and levy on oil, gas and mineral tax (four countries). Other mechanisms include the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) trust fund, the social impact bond, the financial transaction tax, mobile phone tax and equity funds. Funds generated from many mechanisms are not allocated to health, although some portions are allocated to health-related activities. In some countries where mechanisms implemented are public health-related, emphasis is placed on positive health behavior beyond raising funds. Persistent resistance from industries due to conflicting economic policies is a major challenge. Conclusions Leveraging international policies and setting up intersectoral committees to develop and implement innovative mechanisms that involve excise taxes are recommended as possible solutions to the conflicts of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past five years, there have been growing calls for transformative responses to sustainability challenges, supported by increased transformative action in the pursuit of environmental justice. In parallel to this development within the policy arena, the concept of transformation and its potential is also attracting more attention within the research community. This paper uses the example of the Urban Natural Assests for Africa (UNA) programme to explore what transformative change might mean for cities and how this might be achieved through enacting just processes. It explores in some more detail different approaches to transformative change to explain how and why an enabling perspective on transformation is considered to be fruitful in developing the understanding of transformative capacity for change. The paper then explores how the programme was able to foster this capacity, with what consequences for the African cities and what it implies for the nature of change for urban social and environmental justice in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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As low income societies are aging rapidly, government and families face challenges to support the seniors, who are already at greater risks of being negatively affected by many other social, cultural, and global changes occurring around them. This paper reviews some of the major challenges faced by seniors in China, India, Mexico, and African countries. It also examines some of the sustainable solutions to these challenges.

This article discusses the effects of imperialism on British (or chiefly English) social life and education in the nineteenth century rather than examining the effects on the colonised as is usually done. It is shown that the nineteenth century was infused with different visual and written images which helped develop attitudes and ideas which influenced social change in Britain. The "imperial gaze" demonstrated a fascination with the unknown and exotic; a scientific curiosity to discover, collect, classify and explain; an economic desire to find and exploit; and mixed motivations from religious, humanitarian and nationalistic impulses to convert, "civilise" and dominate. In different ways and at different levels this entailed a wish to "know" and an urge to pass on presumed "truths" that interlocked imperial influences into educational enterprise, although not necessarily within formal schooling. As the century progressed, events within the expanding empire, combining with scientific theories, helped to develop cultural arrogance, dominated by ideas of white, Western superiority. Yet there was no homogenous, uncontested discourse. As post-imperial debates suggest, chronological shifts, differing gender and class responses are significant. Effects could be paradoxical as those of imperial opportunities and rhetoric were on women's lives. Examples from other imperial nations, especially France and the Netherlands, indicate parallel imperial, sometimes imperialistic, concerns and interests and varying consequences, but in different contexts. The paper ends with some suggestions on how the difficulties of analysing the effects of empire on social change and education could be addressed within history of education. (Contains 1 figure and 79 footnotes.)

The main hypothesis here is that the notion of economic and social development has been misconceived by most stakeholders in matters of development. This misconception is the main cause of underdevelopment in Kenya, which leads to all the reasons most authors and commentators have given to explain Kenya's situation. Therefore, it is only possible to characterise the role of human development in Kenyan economic development after understanding what the notion of economic and social development means and whether in the Kenyan context human development should actually precede economic development or vice versa. This approach to development has created the phenomenon of Africans living "parallel lives" as recently reported in "The East African" on June 25, 2007. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that there is a native African way of life concurrently competing, though unfavourably, with the imported dominant Western culture. The main argument in this article, therefore, is that the institutional changes through social policy targeting the modernisation of the Kenyan traditional way of life ought to be the driver of economic growth and curriculum reforms, instead of expecting economic growth and curriculum reforms to generate development. (Contains 4 notes.)

Two books acknowledge the importance of education in empowering African women and girls, both socially and economically, but differ from the dominant discourse by delving into locally grounded investigations of the dynamics that influence girls' access to education, outcomes, and the nature of the empowerment that education accords them. The scope and limitations of the gender and education discourse are discussed. (SV)

One of the fundamental fallacies of racism is the confusion between biological accidents such as: body, colour, environment, size, shape, and melanin with metaphysical essences like; soul, mind, and intellect. Personness for instance is an essential category that does not depend on the above accidental attributes. Since time immemorial, racism has been reinforced by deeply entrenched social structures. These structures are the offspring of both overt and covert racism. Structural racism is epitomised by ideologies that have been well disguised under facades of science. These ideologies include: Eugenics, Social Darwinism, Modernisation theory and Neo-liberalism. This paper critically analyses the religious, political, psychoanalytic, historical and economic construction of structural and institutional racism that reinforces honorary whiteness in the African social milieu. The paper argues that the purpose of racism is constructing Black and Brown people as entities in dire need of White Saviourism and White Paternalism. This consequently culminates into imperialism, neo-colonialism, subjugation and exploitation. The paper further contends that racism is crystalised through mental colonialism which rides on socially constructed racial binaries, dichotomies and hierarchies such as: White (righteous) and Black (evil), North (top) and South (bottom), West (Sun-rise) and (Sun-set), Aryan and Honorary Aryan, White and Honorary White. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proceedings of the conference on improving the social responsiveness of medical schools include papers on the role of medical schools in relation to societal needs, the missions of medical schools (from North American, European, African, and Asian perspectives), measuring social responsiveness (perspective of the United Kingdom, standard-setting, case studies from New Mexico and Thailand), and the Canadian experience. (MSE)

Gail Kelly's work on colonial education in Indochina and French West Africa focused on the importance of studying schooling in its social context, called for the integrative study of schooling processes as a more productive approach than traditional input-output models, and examined the relationship between education and social change in colonial societies. (SV)

This paper examined the challenges of climate change and prospects of harnessing opportunities from the challenges to advance the socioeconomic development and sustainability of Sub-Saharan African countries. The methodology of the study is exploratory, involving a comprehensive survey and review of conceptual and empirical literature on the nature and manifestations of climate, environment and social changes and the dynamic relationships between climate change, the environment and social change. From the information gathered on how climate change impacts on the environment and how environmental changes impact on the climate and how both changes collectively impact on social change and the economy, the authors identified potential opportunities that can be harnessed to advance the economy of Sub Sahara Africa. The exploratory literature review revealed that though the interdependent cause and effects of the complex interwoven relationships between man, climate and environment have negative effects on the socio economy, scientists, sociologists, economists, state and non-state actors and their institutions should not remain passive and should not only try to counter or mitigate the negative effects but should as well explore and harness potential opportunities such as investment on cost effective renewable energy projects, development of carbon finance markets for sale of carbon credits through massive agricultural plantations, clusters of energy efficient industrial SMEs, developing technology capable of reducing pollution and converting waste to wealth projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]