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This article presents a Pedagogical Framework for Invasive Species to shift how we understand, teach, and study invasive species, especially when people are responsible for their expansion into new ecosystems. The focus is on a species originating from countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that humans extracted and introduced in certain regions of the Americas, Europe, and Asia: "Xenopus laevis," African Clawed Frog, or Idwi in the Zulu language. This article re-introduces the frog Idwi through lenses of de/post-colonial theory, Indigenous studies, and Critical Race Theory to create counternarratives. Through a popular press analysis, the article uncovers how humans in colonial contexts extracted species from de/colonizing spaces to export to other regions of the world. When the frogs were profitable, the entrepreneurs who exported them were valorized. However, once seen as invasive, frogs were targeted with xenophobic projections. This article foregrounds counternarratives that challenge and critique universal application of the "invasive species" label.

Bomba is an emblematic Puerto Rican musical genre that emerged 400 years ago from the colonial plantations where West African slaves and their descendants worked. It remains one of the most popular forms of folk music on the island and serves as significant evidence of its rich African heritage. This article explores the main components of bomba by making them more accessible to those that have not experienced it from an insider's perspective. The material presented in this article provides a learning sequence that could take the form of several lessons, or even a curricular unit. Transcriptions of rhythms typically learned aurally are also included.

Culturally oriented dance has the potential for positive impact on both physical and mental health among professional dancers as well as among dance students in higher education and community dance programs. West African dance in particular has been found to influence a range of health outcomes. Despite available research demonstrating the significant benefits of cultural dance, there is a dearth of research which has examined the self-perceived benefits of cultural dance among dancers themselves. The current project utilized qualitative methodology to examine the psychological and physical health benefits of West African dance from the perspectives of 36 dance students attending a West African dance conference. Findings suggest West African dance can influence positive physical, mental, and social health among dancers and connects them to culture and community in unique and important ways. Implications for research and dance education are discussed.

Taking a lead from recent articles in "The History Teacher," the author placed history, popular culture, and historical literacy at the core of a history course entitled "Enchanted Capitalism: Myths, Monsters, and Markets." Drawing on folklore, literature, popular culture, and economics, the course explored the rise of capitalism and its relation to tales of monstrosity in England from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and the globalization of capitalism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and its relation to tales of vampires and zombies from Sub-Saharan Africa, Britain, the U.S., and Japan. The course asked students to explore the relationship between capitalism and the rise of stories involving a new kind of monster-- one that is undead--and, in doing so, interrogate key symbolic registers in which capitalist commodification is experienced by people in established capitalist societies and in societies undergoing capitalist development at different times and in different places to see if there were important differences in the kinds of monsters each culture produced in folklore, literature, video, and film. This article describes historical contexts for the course, course goals and structure, teaching the course, and student engagement used to meet learning outcomes.

Diverse education professionals learned about African cultures in a workshop experience by making African masks using authentic symbolism. Analysis of reflections to evaluate the workshop for applicability to participants with and without African heritage showed that both groups expanded their cultural knowledge of traditional African ethnic groups. Those participants with African heritage noted valuing of women while those without African heritage expressed appreciation for African culture, self-evaluation of work, and the desire to investigate their own heritages.

Myths are accounts of the origin of societies and institutions not subject to rationalization but often used by historians and philosophers in their quest to study African history; for it is only thus that we can comprehend the various aspects of the continent's history and culture. This paper examines the critical understanding of African worldview, the place of African philosophy and the significance of myths in the reflection of African experience.

Sarah McGee's major contribution to the profession of art therapy was her use of traditional African healing practices in her work with clients. Her immersive training as a ndeppkat (spiritual healer) and Lébou Ndepp rituals in Senegal offered a foundation for her approach to therapy. These rituals informed her work, even in secular settings, through attention to the whole client (bio-psychosocial) and community involvement. The significance and implications of McGee's pioneering efforts for contemporary art therapists include adopting a holistic perspective, involving the community for treating individuals, incorporating drumming, and collaborating with spiritual healers.

Building on Ndofirepi's plea for an approach to teaching philosophy to high-school learners in Africa that is a hybrid of western and African thought, I argue that a critical touchstone is needed if the traditional wisdom is to be sifted, and that this can be found in the idea of the questioning and responsible subject. Traditional proverbs and myths, whether African or not, reveal a growing sense of responsibility but philosophy, I argue, can contribute the principle of non-contradiction and the foundational norm of responsibility. The principle and the norm can be found to be at the heart of the modern scientific enterprise and can in principle ground a dialogue between African traditional and modern European value-systems.

The migration of blacks in North America through slavery became united. The population of blacks past downs a tradition of artist through art to native born citizens. The art tradition involved telling stories to each generation in black families. The black culture elevated by tradition created hope to determine their personal freedom to escape from poverty of enslavement and to establish a way of life through tradition. A way of personal freedoms was through getting a good education that lead to a better foundation and a better way of life. With regard to all historic migrations (forced and voluntary), the African Union defined the African diaspora as "[consisting] of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union." Its constitutive act declares that it shall "invite and encourage the full participation of the African diaspora as an important part of our continent, in the building of the African Union."

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.

Folk music programmes have been a major feature of higher education music departments across the Nordic region for several decades. Still, programmes that offer the opportunity to deeply study non-European music (other than jazz) are very rare in most of Europe, and programmes in music "education" that offer such opportunities at anything more than a superficial level had been virtually non-existent until the launch of the international collaborative Nordic Master of Global Music (GLOMAS) programme at WOMEX in 2009. This article is based on observations and interviews with participants at the GLOMUS camp, an intensive post-graduate music course affiliated with the GLOMAS programme that was first held in Ghana (3-13 April 2011), as well as questionnaires administered at the beginning and end of this unique event and examination of the first five master theses produced by GLOMAS students. The findings suggest that the camp was largely successful in terms of advancing creative artistry, intercultural understanding and pedagogical competence via both traditional and experimental fusion musicianship that transcends cultural boundaries. The conclusions illustrate how similar programmes might be implemented in other settings to enhance the diversity and relevance of music teacher training.

Improving education equity and quality is a major focus of global developmental movements. Within that overarching goal, educators and advocates around the world are working to ensure children with special needs receive a quality education. For many, this means pursuing programs of inclusion. The author of this article uses the tools of education diplomacy being shaped by the Association for Childhood Education International to discuss the influence of local religious and cultural practices on the education of children with disabilities, the dominant models of disability, and the differences in conceptualizing inclusive education across the world. The article highlights the need to take an approach informed by education diplomacy when advocates of inclusive education seek to collaborate with various stakeholders in the fields of early education and special needs education.

"Koladeras" are women who use call and response in impromptu songs that may contain proverbs, stories about the community, their life experiences, and who and what they see in their world from their own perspective. Via qualitative methods of (auto)ethnography, personal and life story narratives, and interviews, I look at how "koladeras'" as literacy educators of multiple generations of Cape Verdeans. I identify African centered koladera literacies and discuss how have been passed down and taken different forms from generation to generation and next and argue for inclusion of these literacies in academia. More specifically, I argue that "koladeras" are literacy educators who have taught generations of Cape Verdeans how African centered Cape Verdean literacies challenge narrow, racist, classist, and sexist notions of literacy.

Dance embraces the entire globe. Universities offer world dance classes to expose students to various styles and educators travel to different countries to experience how dance is viewed, performed, and taught in different cultures. In this article nine dance educators share their experiences of teaching and observing dance abroad. These accounts give us insights about how other religions and governments view dance, how folk dance reflects national pride and is preserved, how dance is an integral part of physical education, and how the study of other cultures can improve educators' teaching methods.

This article explores the characteristics, goals, modes of transmission, teaching and learning strategies of indigenous African education, in which the pursuit of excellence and quality has always been an important aim. Informal and vocational training constitute the core of indigenous education in Africa. Under this traditional system, each person in the community is practically trained and prepared for his/her role in society. It is a holistic system, in which story telling, proverbs and myths also play an important role. The author suggests the adoption of some of the elements of this system into modern-day educational practice as a strategy for improving quality.

This article examines the possible role played by African folk literature, taking Setswana folktales as a case in point, in justifying and perpetuating the abusive behaviour so often witnessed and decried in postmodern society. We found some evidence that certain folktales may depict real-life child abuse by adults (male and female), and, indeed, serve to perpetuate pre-modern societal beliefs. Ideally speaking, citizens should probably be educated about the possible negative impact of that part of folk literature that serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes of children as objects to be (ab)used. Since folk literature may be serving as a potentially significant guardian of these beliefs, a possible first step would be to identify folktales and other stories that may keep alive beliefs that reinforce obsolete views about children. This is a challenge to all folklorists. (Contains 2 tables.)

The article considers Ghanaian folk songs as a training ground for music and social skill development. The U.S. is in cultural transition. Such changes have brought about reforms in educational policy including how teachers and school boards address ethnic diversity. The music of Africa is as diverse as its geography and its numerous ethnic groups, making it challenging to create a list of general characteristics. (Contains 1 figure and 3 endnotes.)

In this essay, the author furthers the argument that critical commentary on the Rajput and Muslim miniatures of India has focused on a rather odd use of labels and categories, perhaps to an even greater extent than has been the case with much of the rest of the criticism of the art of South Asia. She first examines the use of the term "mannerist" with respect to this work, noting that Mannerism as a term from a school of the Renaissance has a decided set of connotations attached to it, and one that cannot easily be overlooked or ignored. She notes that it is particularly instructive to attempt to come to grips with the humanist thought that preceded the development of the Renaissance itself, a type of thought that is almost completely lacking in the Indian worldview. She then notes the use of a term that might be thought to be oppositional, "naturalist," in criticism of the Kangra school, and again argues that the term has a meaning from which it is not easily detached. Finally, she comments on the ready availability of formalist lines of criticism for those attempting to deal with Asian work, since Clive Bell, Roger Fry, and others not only cited the applicability of their theories to the work of Asia, and, indeed, Africa, but were noted as having done so by others, including the American commentator Alain Locke. (Contains 10 notes.)

Defines and documents the interplay between indigenous folk knowledge and modern (western) curriculum practice in African schools. Raises questions of cultural identity. Explores the definition of indigenous knowledge, examines dilemmas that undermine efforts to integrate indigenous education in formal school curriculum, and outlines the rationale for valuing indigenous literacy and makes suggestions for achieving it. Contains 40 references. (VWC)

Offers six teaching activities suggested by teachers: addressing vocabulary development; punctuation awareness; building background knowledge for English literature; a system for notetaking; a month-long unit on African folktales; and an Alzheimer patient's response to children's literature. (SR)