Editorial: Recentring Culture and Inclusion in African Educational Development and Transformation
Year: 2025
Type: editorial
Abstract: The International Journal of Educational Development in Africa (IJEDA) was founded on a clear conviction: education on this continent must be understood and transformed from within African histories, languages, epistemologies and struggles.We actively seek work that is African-centred and decolonial in orientation, that takes intersectionality seriously, and that treats education not as a neutral service but as a terrain on which questions of power, justice and development are constantly contested.The contributions in this volume continue that project.They remind us that educational development and transformation are never only a technical matter of curricula, funding formulas or delivery mechanisms.They are always about whose knowledge is legitimised, whose cultures and languages are given space, whose bodies and futures are protected, and whose are rendered expendable.The articles gathered here approach that question from different angles and in different sectors, schools, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges, universities, writing centres, community and religious institutions, but they speak to one another in important ways.For the purposes of this editorial, we group the articles under three overlapping concerns.The first cluster explores culture and language, and demonstrates how the creative arts, Indigenous music, African languages, religious traditions and the spatial politics of academic support all shape what and how learners are able to know.The second cluster focuses on inclusion and inequality, and examines how race, gender, disability, poverty and pedagogical practice structure who participates in education and with what outcomes.The final cluster turns to policy-driven development and professional learning, and asks how e-learning strategies, recognition of prior learning, and other policy instruments can either open or close possibilities for more just and context-sensitive practice.These contributions invite us to reconsider what transformation in African education might entail, and what it would take to move from rhetorical commitment to substantive change.
Institution: University of South Africa
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7123355474