African Early Childhood Development Curriculum and Pedagogy for Turkana nomadic pastoralist communities of Kenya.
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Date
2014
Authors
Ng’asike, J. T.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Wiley Online Library
Abstract
Western conceptions of child development and the models of early education
they engender predominantly shape services for young children in the first eight
years of life all over Africa. This chapter brings a reconceptualist perspective to
the critique of Kenya’s continuing failure to ground early childhood programs
and services in local cultural conceptions, developmental values, childrearing
practices, and the practical day-to-day realities of children’s learning through
participation and apprenticeship in the contexts of family routines, community
experiences, and economic survival activities. The chapter draws on work I
have conducted in nomadic pastoralist communities in Kenya. That research
reveals the disconcerting reality that (a) early childhood education programs
privilege Western pedagogical practices over equally effective and locally more
relevant ones, and (b) local communities are increasingly resentful of an educational
system that alienates their children from their cultural roots in the
name of modernization. Asserting the educational value of indigenous knowledge,
I present a framework for integrating that knowledge and the naturalistic
learning processes in local contexts into instructional programs in formal ECE
settings. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Description
DOI: 10.1002/cad.20072
Keywords
Citation
New directions for child and adolescent development, no. 146, Winter 2014 © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/cad.20072