Abstract
In this philosophical paper, we investigate the project of doing philosophy with children in Africa. While the philosophy for children program has its roots in the Anglo-Saxon world, we contend that it can sit well in Africa if given an African outlook. We challenge Eurocentric specialists, who are attempting a wholesale introduction of the Matthew Lipman model of philosophy for children in schools in Africa, to realign their perspective. This paper takes a critical look at the currency of the post-colonial and Africanization agendas in education by exploring the plausibility of a uniquely African philosophy for children program. We argue that for any philosophy to be African, it should be an amalgamation of the traditional and the modern in order to epitomize the twenty-first century African existential conditions that ameliorate educational practices previously subject to Eurocentric hegemony.
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Notes
Here Nel is referring to African demands for the reclamation of indigenous knowledge, without setting up what he calls “new forms of stereotyping indigenous Africa in essentialist ways” (2005, p. 10).
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Ndofirepi, A.P., Cross, M. Tradition and Modernization: Siting Philosophy for Children Within the African Outlook. Interchange 47, 15–30 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-015-9254-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-015-9254-6