The dilemma of traditional childhood education in Africa, south of the Sahara.
This paper is based on the thesis that a community approach to childhood and child-rearing practices has serious implications for the mental rehabilitation of children born into such a community. Examining such traditional views of childhood and child-rearing practices in an African context, the writer emphasizes that social, religious, economic, and political contacts with Europeans and Arabs, particuarly since the nineteenth century, have radically altered the African Community's view of childhood and child-rearing practices. For instance, socio-educational problems that no one ever thought of in an African traditional perspective are on the increase: abandoned children, delinquent children, broken homes, child stealing, weakening of the mother-child bond, abortion, family planning, etc. These changes are happening to the dismay (not without protest) of Africans who are still guided by traditional African value systems. The paper concludes with the dilemma: How can the Africans advance with the rest of the world, economically, politically, educationally, and socially, and at the same time maintain and preserve their traditional value systems with minimum maladjustment to their mental health?
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000353:Africa, Southern; D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D002668:Child Rearing; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003469:Culture; D004493:Education; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D011247:Pregnancy; D012922:Social Change; D012945:Social Values