Robert Serpell
Biographic Data
| ID | 641222 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Serpell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Serpell |
| SIGNATURE | SERPELL R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Zambia |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6902-1780 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 96 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 33 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1965 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Access to the affordances of literacy
Exploring the links between household chores, learning, and mathematics performance in Zambia
Growth and application of literacy skills by rural Zambian mothers with assistance from their children
Culture-Sensitive Communication in Applied Developmental Research
Communication about child development between persons with different cultural preoccupations requires that author and audience agree without coercion on how to connect their perspectives. Western cultural hegemony persists in many international fora under the guise of “globalization,” giving rise to systematically distorted communication in ways that do epistemological violence to indigenous cultural models in Africa. The dominant paradigm of pub…
Introduction to the special section by the guest editor
Bame Nsamenang’s contributions to scholarship on human development in Africa were grounded in the epistemological insight that psychology is a reflexive enterprise, and that its application in Afri
Early childhood education quality indicators
While more effort is being geared toward implementation of quality early childhood education programs, there is still debate on what quality entails. While the education officers believe they are providing quality education, some communities who are the target beneficiaries see it as meaningless and keep away from it, affecting the “Education for All” slogan. If education has to be meaningful in a manner that addresses Sustainable Development Goa…
Situated understanding of human development in Africa
Gustav Jahoda contended that mainstream psychology’s contribution to our understanding of human experience has been impoverished by a neglect of culture. Over a long series of publications, he argued that the disciplines of psychology, anthropology and history have much to learn from one another, since socio-cultural and politico-economic contexts have influenced the formulation of theories and the dissemination of ideas about human nature. In li…
Human development in Africanist settings
Dimensionality and the Development of Cognitive Assessments for Children in Sub-Saharan Africa
Over the past decade, researchers have shown increased interest in examining the cognitive development of children in non-Western countries, often in connection with evaluations of health and educational interventions. However, many studies have used Western-developed measures without proper consideration of contextual validity. Across domains-from language to cognition to non-cognitive skills-this results in varying degrees of bias that call int…
Some Growth Points in African Child Development Research
We reflect on ways in which research presented in earlier chapters responds to challenges of generating an African child development field and identify additional issues calling for the field's attention. The chapters collectively display a variety of African contexts and reflexive evidence of the authors' African cultural roots. Connecting research with African audiences demands cooperative communication between educational practitioners and par…
Some Long-Standing and Emerging Research Lines in Africa
Early research on child development in Africa was dominated by expatriates and was primarily addressed to the topics of testing the cross-cultural validity of theories developed "in the West," and the search for universals. After a brief review of the outcome of that research, we propose two additional types of motivation that seem important to us as African researchers begin to take the lead in articulating research agendas for the study of chil…
Design and Validation of Assessment Tests for Young Children in Zambia
Early childhood education has received unprecedented attention among African policymakers in recent years, recognizing that the early years form an important foundation upon which later development is anchored and noting evidence that various Early Childhood Development (ECD) indicators are predictive of future academic success. Central to the provision of quality early childhood education is assessment of developmental outcomes. But currently th…
Contextual analysis of home environment factors influencing the acquisition of early reading skills in Zambian families
This study examined the effect of home environment factors in the acquisition of early reading skills (orthographic awareness and decoding competence). To assess these factors, a sample of seventy-two (72) first grade learners (females = 55%; age range = 7–8 years) and their maternal parents (age range 26–61 years old) from low SES in Zambia's capital city, Lusaka were recruited. Parents, in response to a home literacy questionnaire, reported on …
Multiple Perspectives and Constraints on Progressive Social Change
The reflections by Ritva Engestrom and her colleagues (2014) on the use of Developmental Work Research (DWR) in intercultural collaboration between a Finnish research team and the practitioners, ad
Early educational foundations for the development of civic responsibility
An innovative curriculum designed to foster the development of social responsibility among pre-adolescent children was introduced at a rural Zambian primary school. The curriculum invoked Child-to-Child principles focusing on health education, advancing a synthesis of Western psychological theories and African cultural traditions. The teacher sought to democratize the educational process through cooperative learning in mixed-gender, mixed-social-…
Basic Education for Children with Special Needs in Zambia
Zambia’s national policy on the formal education of children with special educational needs (CSEN) began to evolve following the completion of a nation-wide campaign to reach disabled children (ZNCRDC), which was spurred by the UN declaration of 1981 as the International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP). The campaign generated epidemiological estimates of the prevalence of various types of disability among the population of basic school age (5–15 …
Contents, Vol. 40, 1997
The Struggle to Make Sense of School
Challenging western hegemony through systematic study of cultural diversity
Traditional courses in developmental psychology treat the development of white, middle‐class European American children as normative. This approach offers an inaccurate representation of child development, displays a lack of sensitivity towards the cultural diversity of students, and fails to meet these students’ intellectual needs. This paper describes an attempt at rectifying this ethical, paradigmatic error in an undergraduate course on child …
Bridging between orthodox western higher educational practices and an African sociocultural context
The cultural validity of a psychological or educational theory is a function of its sensitizing and heuristic power for a given task addressed by a given community. African universities have inherited from the West a number of institutionalized arrangements for learning that tend to decontextualize the learning process by extracting learners from everyday life. The challenge of adapting university education to the needs and aspirations of an Afri…
Optimizing the Developmental Consequences of Education
The Embeddedness of Human Development within Sociocultural Context
Standardization of the Panga Munthu Test-A Nonverbal Cognitive Test Developed in Zambia
Ravinder Kathuria, Robert Serpell, Standardization of the Panga Munthu Test-A Nonverbal Cognitive Test Developed in Zambia, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 67, No. 3, Assessment in the Context of Culture and Pedagogy (Summer, 1998), pp. 228-241
The Significance of Schooling
Negotiating a fusion of horizons
Explanations of child development can be used to inform social action at various levels. In many cases a key factor determining the effectiveness of such explanations is the degree to which they are appropriated by primary agents of child socialization, such as parents. In every culture, parents routinely draw on implicit theoretical ideas to interpret the behavior of the children for whom they care, to decide how to respond to that behavior, and…
International Preferences in Selecting Mates
This study sought to identify the effects of culture and sex on mate preferences using samples drawn world-wide. Thirty-seven samples were obtained from 33 countries located on six continents and five islands (N = 9,474). Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed strong effects of both culture and sex, moderated by specific mate characteristics. Chastity proved to be the mate characteristic on which cultures varied the most. The preference order…
How specific are perceptual skills? A cross-cultural study of pattern reproduction
Pattern reproduction tasks were presented in four different media to samples of urban Zambian and urban British schoolchildren. When the patterns were reproduced as wire models, the Zambian children excelled the British. When the patterns were reproduced by drawing, the British children excelled the Zambian. No reliable cross-cultural differences were found when the patterns were reproduced as plasticine models or as configurations of hand positi…
Multiple Perspectives and Constraints on Progressive Social Change
The reflections by Ritva Engestrom and her colleagues (2014) on the use of Developmental Work Research (DWR) in intercultural collaboration between a Finnish research team and the practitioners, ad
Preference for Specific Orientation of Abstract Shapes among Zambian Children
Experiment I replicates and extends among Grade 3 and Grade 5 urban Zambian schoolchildren findings obtained by Ghent (1961) among U. S. A. pre-school children. The Ss showed consistent preferences for specific orientations of abstract, geometrical shapes, including some of the designs used in the Bender-Gestalt and Koh's Blocks tests. Three hypothetical determinants of these preferences are discussed: (1) location of focal part," (2) "stability,…
Standardization of the Panga Munthu Test-A Nonverbal Cognitive Test Developed in Zambia
Ravinder Kathuria, Robert Serpell, Standardization of the Panga Munthu Test-A Nonverbal Cognitive Test Developed in Zambia, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 67, No. 3, Assessment in the Context of Culture and Pedagogy (Summer, 1998), pp. 228-241
Early childhood education quality indicators
While more effort is being geared toward implementation of quality early childhood education programs, there is still debate on what quality entails. While the education officers believe they are providing quality education, some communities who are the target beneficiaries see it as meaningless and keep away from it, affecting the “Education for All” slogan. If education has to be meaningful in a manner that addresses Sustainable Development Goa…
The Significance of Schooling
Colour Prejudice and Oxford Landladies
Preference for Specific Orientation of Abstract Shapes among Zambian Children
Experiment I replicates and extends among Grade 3 and Grade 5 urban Zambian schoolchildren findings obtained by Ghent (1961) among U. S. A. pre-school children. The Ss showed consistent preferences for specific orientations of abstract, geometrical shapes, including some of the designs used in the Bender-Gestalt and Koh's Blocks tests. Three hypothetical determinants of these preferences are discussed: (1) location of focal part," (2) "stability,…
Another Opinion on Pictorial Art in Zambia
Need for a new direction
Mallory Wober. Psychology in Africa. London: International African Institute, 1975. 247 pp. $9.00 cloth, $7.00 paper
How specific are perceptual skills? A cross-cultural study of pattern reproduction
Pattern reproduction tasks were presented in four different media to samples of urban Zambian and urban British schoolchildren. When the patterns were reproduced as wire models, the Zambian children excelled the British. When the patterns were reproduced by drawing, the British children excelled the Zambian. No reliable cross-cultural differences were found when the patterns were reproduced as plasticine models or as configurations of hand positi…
International Preferences in Selecting Mates
This study sought to identify the effects of culture and sex on mate preferences using samples drawn world-wide. Thirty-seven samples were obtained from 33 countries located on six continents and five islands (N = 9,474). Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed strong effects of both culture and sex, moderated by specific mate characteristics. Chastity proved to be the mate characteristic on which cultures varied the most. The preference order…
Exaggerating the Significance of Text
The central insight of Gordon Wells' wide-ranging article is that the intellectual impact of a written on its reader depends on how it is read. This mode of engagement with the text is a joint product of characteristics of the and a stance adopted by the reader. Moreover, in the case of beginning readers, the stance adopted is open to influence by a third party, an experienced reader, who can by judicious prompting and questioning orient the begi…
Negotiating a fusion of horizons
Explanations of child development can be used to inform social action at various levels. In many cases a key factor determining the effectiveness of such explanations is the degree to which they are appropriated by primary agents of child socialization, such as parents. In every culture, parents routinely draw on implicit theoretical ideas to interpret the behavior of the children for whom they care, to decide how to respond to that behavior, and…
The Significance of Schooling
The Significance of Schooling
Standardization of the Panga Munthu Test-A Nonverbal Cognitive Test Developed in Zambia
Ravinder Kathuria, Robert Serpell, Standardization of the Panga Munthu Test-A Nonverbal Cognitive Test Developed in Zambia, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 67, No. 3, Assessment in the Context of Culture and Pedagogy (Summer, 1998), pp. 228-241
The Embeddedness of Human Development within Sociocultural Context
Optimizing the Developmental Consequences of Education
Bridging between orthodox western higher educational practices and an African sociocultural context
The cultural validity of a psychological or educational theory is a function of its sensitizing and heuristic power for a given task addressed by a given community. African universities have inherited from the West a number of institutionalized arrangements for learning that tend to decontextualize the learning process by extracting learners from everyday life. The challenge of adapting university education to the needs and aspirations of an Afri…
Challenging western hegemony through systematic study of cultural diversity
Traditional courses in developmental psychology treat the development of white, middle‐class European American children as normative. This approach offers an inaccurate representation of child development, displays a lack of sensitivity towards the cultural diversity of students, and fails to meet these students’ intellectual needs. This paper describes an attempt at rectifying this ethical, paradigmatic error in an undergraduate course on child …
Contents, Vol. 40, 1997
The Struggle to Make Sense of School
Early educational foundations for the development of civic responsibility
An innovative curriculum designed to foster the development of social responsibility among pre-adolescent children was introduced at a rural Zambian primary school. The curriculum invoked Child-to-Child principles focusing on health education, advancing a synthesis of Western psychological theories and African cultural traditions. The teacher sought to democratize the educational process through cooperative learning in mixed-gender, mixed-social-…
Basic Education for Children with Special Needs in Zambia
Zambia’s national policy on the formal education of children with special educational needs (CSEN) began to evolve following the completion of a nation-wide campaign to reach disabled children (ZNCRDC), which was spurred by the UN declaration of 1981 as the International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP). The campaign generated epidemiological estimates of the prevalence of various types of disability among the population of basic school age (5–15 …
Some Growth Points in African Child Development Research
We reflect on ways in which research presented in earlier chapters responds to challenges of generating an African child development field and identify additional issues calling for the field's attention. The chapters collectively display a variety of African contexts and reflexive evidence of the authors' African cultural roots. Connecting research with African audiences demands cooperative communication between educational practitioners and par…
Some Long-Standing and Emerging Research Lines in Africa
Early research on child development in Africa was dominated by expatriates and was primarily addressed to the topics of testing the cross-cultural validity of theories developed "in the West," and the search for universals. After a brief review of the outcome of that research, we propose two additional types of motivation that seem important to us as African researchers begin to take the lead in articulating research agendas for the study of chil…
Design and Validation of Assessment Tests for Young Children in Zambia
Early childhood education has received unprecedented attention among African policymakers in recent years, recognizing that the early years form an important foundation upon which later development is anchored and noting evidence that various Early Childhood Development (ECD) indicators are predictive of future academic success. Central to the provision of quality early childhood education is assessment of developmental outcomes. But currently th…
Contextual analysis of home environment factors influencing the acquisition of early reading skills in Zambian families
This study examined the effect of home environment factors in the acquisition of early reading skills (orthographic awareness and decoding competence). To assess these factors, a sample of seventy-two (72) first grade learners (females = 55%; age range = 7–8 years) and their maternal parents (age range 26–61 years old) from low SES in Zambia's capital city, Lusaka were recruited. Parents, in response to a home literacy questionnaire, reported on …
Multiple Perspectives and Constraints on Progressive Social Change
The reflections by Ritva Engestrom and her colleagues (2014) on the use of Developmental Work Research (DWR) in intercultural collaboration between a Finnish research team and the practitioners, ad
Dimensionality and the Development of Cognitive Assessments for Children in Sub-Saharan Africa
Over the past decade, researchers have shown increased interest in examining the cognitive development of children in non-Western countries, often in connection with evaluations of health and educational interventions. However, many studies have used Western-developed measures without proper consideration of contextual validity. Across domains-from language to cognition to non-cognitive skills-this results in varying degrees of bias that call int…
Psychology (27 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (16 works) · Political science (15 works) · Developmental psychology (14 works) · Pedagogy (10 works) · Social Psychology (10 works) · Anthropology (8 works) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works)