Some reflections on the sociology of African education

SYNOPSIS The author examines the theory of social change through the influence of an educated, creative minority, and, from his investigations of relationships between schoolboys and their families in Uganda, concludes that the educated few are in fact being imitated and causing social change along a broad front. His evidence leads him to the conclusion that new skills are more easily acquired when they have no direct counterpart in the tribal situation, and when the school is not in competition with traditional institutions such as family occupational castes. The author points to changes in social attitudes under the conditions of culture contact, and to the difficulty of predicting the nature of these changes. He questions whether Christian teaching does in fact produce Christian behaviour and characters, but gives evidence of the strong moral influence of the separatist sects. He argues that the accumulation of far more empirical data is needed before we can tell what new social attitudes and types of behaviour arise in particular social contexts and from particular academic and moral teaching. He gives his own account of changes which he has observed with respect to co‐operation, practical pursuits, attitude to women and family, physical courage and aesthetic values

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• The Dynamics of Culture Change; An Inquiry Into Race Relations in Africa

  Bronislaw Malinowski, Louis Stern Memorial Fund et al.•The Dynamics of Culture Change;…•2018

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