We present here one set of snapshots of urban education in Africa, one set out of a universe of possible sets. We have engaged in this collection with authors whose disciplinary approaches describe a wide range of work available in each author’s country of focus. As a result, the reader will find references to local, regional, and national issues in each country studied. Beyond this are found references to Bronfenbrenner’s social psychology, Bourdieu’s notions of social and cultural capital, Saussure’s ideas about language and culture, and approaches in public policy around both the establishment of national language(s), and national identity formation. In addition, authors here take from urban sociology the ideas of equity in education and distributive justice as per John Rawls and Amartya Sen.
In short, we sought to permit authors the space to take up their perspectives, in the context of their own research, including the particular national contexts in which they worked. On this point, Suleiman A. Adebowale (2001), in his examination of four prominent journals focusing on Africa (Canadian Journal of African Studies; Africa Development; Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines; and, the Journal of Modern African Studies), points out how few of the articles published in these four journals are written by African scholars. He takes the point further in noting how few Africans are doing their work in Africa.
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Brennan, K., Nyang’oro, J. (2007). Urban Education in Africa: Section Editors' Introduction. In: Pink, W.T., Noblit, G.W. (eds) International Handbook of Urban Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5199-9_1
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