Cultural perspectives and teacher education: indigenous pedagogies in an African context

The notion of indigenous pedagogies captures the locality and diversity of current approaches to African teacher education – approaches that have been in theoretical, practical and political contest with one another. By indigenous pedagogies I refer to the ways of teaching that are enhanced by local knowledges and found among indigenous peoples. In the school context, for example, these non-Western education traditions and thought consist of a complex set of processes or abilities, ways of knowing and ways of being that students bring to the classrooms, abilities that span their lifetime – from employing their indigenous languages to relating their history.