Religion’s Transformative Role in African Education: A Zambian Perspective

Although religion forms part of the educational curriculum in much of sub-Saharan Africa, its nature and role tend to be greatly restricted. By way of taking the situation at the University of Zambia (UNZA) as a case study, it will be argued that the teaching of religion as more truly conceptualized, as well as a person-centred pedagogy, can make a distinctive contribution and realize some of its transformative potential. This may provide a more appropriate paradigm for much needed transformative education in the region

Religion’s Transformative Role in African Education: A Zambian Perspective

Although religion forms part of the educational curriculum in much of sub-Saharan Africa, its nature and role tend to be greatly restricted. By way of taking the situation at the University of Zambia (UNZA) as a case study, it will be argued that the teaching of religion as more truly conceptualized, as well as a person-centred pedagogy, can make a distinctive contribution and realize some of its transformative potential. This may provide a more appropriate paradigm for much needed transformative education in the region

Book Reviews

A review of three books concerning education in sub-Saharan Africa: Education in East and Central Africa, edited by C. Wolhuter (London: Bloomsbury, 2014) Education in Southern Africa edited by C. Harber. (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) Education in West Africa, edited by E.J. Takyi-Amoaka (London: Bloomsbury, 2015

Book Reviews

A review of three books concerning education in sub-Saharan Africa: Education in East and Central Africa, edited by C. Wolhuter (London: Bloomsbury, 2014) Education in Southern Africa edited by C. Harber. (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) Education in West Africa, edited by E.J. Takyi-Amoaka (London: Bloomsbury, 2015

Artful Liars: Malingering on the Draw-A-Person Task

Malingering is a form of deception in which one fakes illness to earn (positive or negative) reinforcement. The purpose of the current research was to explore the ability of naïve participants to malinger distress on a clinical, projective measure (Draw-A-Person; DAP). In two experiments, individuals first drew figures of a man, woman, and self. Then, they imagined they were in a motor vehicle accident and drew the figures again as if they were falsely claiming distress from the accident. In Experiment 1, 65 undergraduates participated and in Experiment 2, 70 undergraduates and 40 high school students participated. The drawings were objectively scored using a standardized protocol and ‘honest’ and ‘malingered’ drawings were compared. In both Experiments, participants successfully malingered distress and did so by drawing more “primitively”, earning lower cognitive ability scores on their malingered drawings. Hence, objectively-scored DAP tasks are vulnerable to deliberate distortion by naïve individuals, though malingering detection may be possible in the future via cognitive skill scores. However, reliance on DAP tasks for diagnostic or forensic purposes currently seems questionable

Emotional reactivity and perseveration: Independent dimensions of trait positive and negative affectivity and differential associations with psychological distress

Background: Theoretically, two types of emotional responding could underlie individual differences in trait affect: 1) a disposition reflecting increased probability of experiencing positive or negative emotions (emotional reactivity), and 2) a disposition to experience prolonged emotional reactions once elicited (emotional perseveration). We developed a measure of these dimensions and investigated whether emotional reactivity and perseveration 1) account for unique variance in trait affect, and 2) are differentially associated with symptoms of psychological distress. Method: In Study 1, participants (T1: n = 90; T2: n = 51) completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and the Emotional Reactivity and Perseveration Scale (ERPS, adapted from the PANAS). In study 2, participants (n = 228) completed the PANAS, ERPS, and Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. Results: Study 1 established the basic psychometric properties of the ERPS and demonstrated that emotional reactivity and perseveration accounted for unique variance in trait positive and negative effect. Study 2 confirmed these findings and established that emotional reactivity and perseveration are differentially associated with depression, anxiety, and stress scores. Conclusion: Emotional reactivity and perseveration represent independent dimensions of trait affect. Considering these dimension in future research could further the understanding of both normal emotional responding and emotional vulnerability

Zambia’s Poorest Progressively Left Behind: Well-Being Denied

After Independence in 1964, the government of Zambia set out to fashion a national of equals. In this, the school was seen to be a key strategy along the lines of the modernisation route to development. Initially, this seemed to be well directed but within a short time it was evident that this mode of schooling was elitist, promoting division between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ Today, the country is greatly divided between those who are well-off and those who are not. This article traces the path to this outcome historically

Contingent infrastructure and the dilution of ‘Chineseness’: Reframing roads and rail in Kampala and Addis Ababa

Amid growing interest in China’s role in financing and building infrastructure in Africa, there is still little research on how Chinese-financed infrastructures are negotiated and realised at the city and metropolitan scale. We compare the Light Rail Transit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with the expressway linking Kampala to Entebbe airport in Uganda, examining the processes of bargaining behind these transport infrastructures and their emergent effects on urban land use and city-dwellers’ mobility. We find that both projects were designed and implemented through opaque negotiations between African national elites and Chinese agencies, with little or no engagement from city authorities, leading to haphazard outcomes that are poorly integrated with broader planning. Yet we also suggest that despite being enabled and mediated by Chinese agencies, such projects do not embody a Chinese global vision. They instead reflect the entrepreneurial activities of Chinese contractors and the varying ways in which these connect with African national governments’ shifting priorities. Moreover, as they are subsumed into the urban context, these transposed infrastructures have been rapidly repurposed and their ‘Chineseness’ diluted, with one morphing into an infrastructure for the poor and the other into a site of private value extraction. We thus argue that, far from representing a domineering or neo-colonial influence, Chinese-financed infrastructures that land in institutionally complex African city-regions can be rapidly swallowed up into the political-economic landscape, producing contingent benefits and disbenefits that are far removed from the visions of any planners – Chinese or African, past or present