Black Perspectives

Black cultures represent broad diversity all over the globe and on every continent. From my work in Nigeria in early learning to understanding the Canadian and American contexts of the descendants of slaves to the Caribbean and beyond, Black childhoods encompass many different experiences.

Black scholars have provided leadership in thinking about the impact of race on learning and achievement in North America. Post-colonial theory (Childs and Williams, 1997) and critical race theory (Delgado and Stefancic, 2023) have provided insights into the broader context of why it is essential to consider race in thinking about children from historically and currently marginalized populations. But we must also turn to fourth world theory (Ryser, Gilio-Whitaker & Bruce, 2017) to shift our perspective on African cultures — and indeed any nations that do not conform to colonial boundaries — away from a race-based approach and towards a nation-to-nation approach built on understanding and respect.

In Canada, discussions of Indigeneity on Turtle Island are frequently linked with discussions of African Indigeneity as the historical context and shared values have deep connection and meaning. Four Directions learning has been applied to South-Central African nations linked to the cosmos, the elements of the directions on earth, or other natural elements. Ryser, Gilio-Whitaker and Bruce (2017) discuss the usefulness of this metaphor for the interconnected models of human experience in Indigenous cultures all over the world. Of the African cultures, the authors point to 1,000 distinct nations of peoples whose existence is estimated back more than two million years (p. 60). The parallel of knowledge being given through community and relationship echoes Turtle Island, and these relationships are forged out of the vital force, or “Bwanga.” But Bwanga exists not only between people but among all things of the natural world.

The Four Directions exemplified in the African context through the Kongo Cross refers to two pyramids pointing north (to the Sahara Desert) and south (to the southern part of the continent) that are connected by circles representing local systems and beyond (as depicted here). This nation-to-nation model of the fourth world theory is powerful in its constant contextualization within the broader continents and world.

While in the West, we often talk of “local knowledge” as being something unique to a specific place and time, Indigenous knowledges have, in fact, been shared across nations and have changed over time. This openness to change and sharing knowledge can act as a theoretical framework for this text: we look to other viewpoints together, share perspectives, and widen our understanding in an ongoing and dynamic way.

In the spirit of new ideas and looking at current thinking on Black childhoods, we turn to Anthony Broughton’s (2022) celebration of Black early childhood scholars. A caution brought forward by Broughton (2022) that has been identified in other non-Western perspectives relates to  “developmentally appropriate practice” because it neglects the highly specific influences of so many sociological, political, and economic factors (p. 16). Broughton also identifies the inappropriateness of applying White theory to Black children. I would extend his argument here to say that the diverse cultural contexts and lived experiences of a diverse society are further reasons to question the notion of a “developmentally appropriate practice.” This argument against such universals in education based on assumed universals in development also extends to the problematic notions of “best practices” in education. Here, I defer to Broughton’s review of the Black theoretical voices that we must consider in a book such as this; in this way, I am bringing in his voice in place of my own to explain what is essential to understand.

Broughton (2022) begins with critical race theory and the work of Frantz Fanon in identifying a “double consciousness” of being Black in a predominantly White society. Broughton specifies, “Many educational professionals may be unaware of how the intersectionality of race, gender, class, and other aspects shapes their lives or their students’ realities.” He points out that the “etic” perspective as an “external to culture” perspective has too often been the one in the education and assessment of Black children. Broughton identifies a fundamental flaw of Western or White theories: they “avoid race identity and multicultural insight” (p. 22).

Moreover, Broughton addresses a sort of “pathologizing” (my term) of Black children when their developmental and learning patterns differ from ones constructed by Western (White) theorists, educators, and psychologists. This pathologizing results in using terms such as “at risk” in ways that are not at all culture-free or accurate but that are rooted in racism and serve to perpetuate oppression. This problem in and of itself is why this very textbook is necessary: we must move beyond problematizing race in our society to understanding different perspectives on how children think and learn.

African Perspectives on Thinking

Serpell and Marfo’s (2014) volume on child development work in Africa begins by identifying the key conceptual problem with much past research: it is Western-centric. That is to say, work in African child development has largely been carried out to cross-check the cultural validity of Western theories (p. 1) or to “search for universals”; the authors identify the work of Western researchers like Price-Williams (1975), Jahoda (1980), and Dasen (1977) to illustrate this universalist trend. The authors also point out that not only psychology and developmental psychology have emerged in the West, but also cultural psychology and anthropology.

Serpell and Marfo (2014) sought to go beyond these goals and these fields to address different objectives: “contextual relevance and practical usefulness” and intelligibility to local audiences. The authors point to a newly emerging field of child development from within African nations and cultures that:

• is pluralistic in its methodologies and approaches;
• learns the lessons from the West to not overgeneralize its findings and perspectives
• is rooted in local relevance that may, in turn, speak to other societies and cultures in meaningful ways.

In understanding the lens through which child development is seen in many African nations, the authors defer to Bame Nsamenang (1992, as cited in Serpell and Marfo, 2014) who identified three “strands of cultural heritage: one with social and cosmological traditions that are endogenous to Africa, one with origins in Islamic religion and law, and one originating from European Christian heritage, legal-administrative traditions, and scientific-technological advances” (p. 15).

What emerged from Nsamenang’s work (1992) was a theoretical model of development proposed for African cultures that is intrinsically social. It is only definable in relation to others, which starkly contrasts Western models. The model comprises the following seven phases:

1. Newborn
2. Presocial
3. Social novice
4. Social entrée
5. Social intern
6. Adulthood
7. Old age

Wadende, Oburu, and Morara (2016) identify East African conceptions of child development that are culturally distinct from those of the West. Specifically, they talk about cultural goals of preparation for life and demonstrating good behaviour. Akin to the Indigenous values of Turtle Island, the authors emphasize an integrated perspective on “physical, emotional, mental and social aspects” of development (p. 1). This paper highlights research carried out in East Africa (to which we will turn in subsequent chapters), but what they extract from that research are ideas about development more broadly. They identify a preparation for life that is integrated into community and responsibility to others (e.g., household tasks and childcare) and involves participation in the adult world— this is consistent with the Rogoff model.

While theoretical models are still being realized by Black (African diasporic) and African scholars, there is also a growing body of research from within Black/diasporic and African cultures, to which we will turn in every chapter.