Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Setting the scene
- Part II Perspectives on development informed by culture
- 4 Indian parents' ethnotheories as reflections of the Hindu scheme of child and human development
- 5 Indigenous conceptions of childhood development and social realities in southern Africa
- 6 The myth of lurking chaos
- 7 Integrating cultural, psychological and biological perspectives in understanding child development
- Part III Perspectives on development drawing from the universal and the specific
- Part IV Perspectives on development informed by evolutionary thinking
- Part V Metaperspectives
- Author index
- Subject index
- Cambridge Cultural Social Studies
5 - Indigenous conceptions of childhood development and social realities in southern Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Setting the scene
- Part II Perspectives on development informed by culture
- 4 Indian parents' ethnotheories as reflections of the Hindu scheme of child and human development
- 5 Indigenous conceptions of childhood development and social realities in southern Africa
- 6 The myth of lurking chaos
- 7 Integrating cultural, psychological and biological perspectives in understanding child development
- Part III Perspectives on development drawing from the universal and the specific
- Part IV Perspectives on development informed by evolutionary thinking
- Part V Metaperspectives
- Author index
- Subject index
- Cambridge Cultural Social Studies
Summary
This chapter is about conceptions of childhood and development from the southern African perspective. Nations of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe are considered here to constitute the southern African region.
The first section deals with clarifications of key concepts used in the presentation. These are embodied in the phrase indigenous conceptions of childhood development. In the second section, links are made between conceptions of childhood and manifestations of the development of children from southern Africa. Based on southern African world views, illustrations of indigenous conceptions of childhood and development are provided in the contexts of childcare and development, children's rights and child and youth development in difficult circumstances. In the third section of the chapter, reflections on the possible contribution of the southern African indigenous and cultural conceptions of childhood to the pan-human arena of developmental science are offered.
Key concepts
According to Archard (1993), the conception of childhood is better understood when it is differentiated from the concept of childhood. To him, the
…concept of childhood requires that children be distinguished from adults in respect of some unspecified set of attributes. A conception of childhood is a specification of those attributes. … I have the concept of childhood if, in my behaviour towards children and the way I talk about them, I display a clear recognition that they are at a distinct and … different stage from adults.
(Archard, 1993, p. 22)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Between Culture and BiologyPerspectives on Ontogenetic Development, pp. 89 - 115Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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