Can ubuntu provide a model for citizenship education in African democracies?

Some proponents of Africanism argue that African traditional education and the principles of ubuntu should provide the framework for citizenship education. While conceding that understandable concerns lie behind defences of ubuntu as underpinning African democracy, we argue that the Africanist perspective faces various problems and makes substantial errors: political, moral, epistemic and educational. While democracy and democratic citizenship necessarily involve sensitivity to local context, their fundamental principles and tenets are universal. Failure to acknowledge this comes at a substantial price. Taking as its initial focus an analysis and critical evaluation of Malegapuru William Makgoba's critique of liberal democracy, the paper questions the purported uniqueness of ubuntu and its value and efficiency as a practical guide to action and policy, as well as its capacity to indicate how conflict between its associate principles and values might be resolved, insofar as these principles and values are indeed morally worthy.     

Book reviews

^cAbd al‐Malik b. Habib. Kitāb al‐Ta'rij (La historia). Edición y estudio por Jorge Aguadé. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas & Instituto de Cooperación con el Mundo Arabe, 1991 (Fuentes Arabico‐Hispanas, 1). 163 + 224 pp. [Arabic title: Kltāb al‐Ta'tikh]

Kedar, Benjamin Z., ed. The Horns of Hattin. Jerusalem and London: Yad Izhak Ben‐Zvi, Israel Exploration Society and Variorum 1992. 368 pp., 12 plates; $74.75 (cloth).

Köprülü, Mehmed Fuad. The Seljuks of Anatolia: Their History and Culture According to Local Muslim Sources. Translated and edited by Gary Leiser. Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1992. xi +101 pp., $22.00 (cloth).

Cameron, Averil and Conrad, Lawrence I., eds. The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: Problems in the Literary Source Material (Papers in the First Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam). Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1992. xiv + 428pp., 12 plates; $29.25 (cloth).

Vereno, Ingolf. Studien zum ältesten alchemistischen Schrifttum. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1992 (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 155). 414pp.

Tolan, John. Petrus Alfonsi and his Medieval Readers. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1993. xv + 288pp., $34.95 (cloth), $16.95 (paper).

Lassner, Jacob. Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1994. 281 pp., $19.95 (paper), $49.95 (cloth).

Menocal, María Rosa. Shards of Love: Exile and the Origins of the Lyric. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1994. xv + 295pp., $34.95 (cloth), $14.95 (paper).

Massignon, Louis. The Passion of al‐Hallāj, Mystic and Martyr of Islam. Translated and edited by Herbert Mason. Abridged edition, Bollingen Series XCVIII. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. xxxi + 293pp.

Viguera Molins, Maria Jesús. El Islam en Aragón. Saragossa: Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada, 1995 (Colección “Mariano de Pano y Ruata”, 9), 174 pp., 182 ills. in colour, maps, diagrams, charts etc No price stated.     

Are you a budding academic writer?

Academic writing can seem a daunting prospect although with the right support and information it can be more achievable than you think. In this first set of editorial comments of 2016, editors from all sections of the Health Information and Libraries Journal outline the origins of the individual section of the journal which they oversee and highlight some of the things you might want to consider when thinking of submitting your writing for publication.     

Pain, suffering, and trauma in labor and prevention of subsequent posttraumatic stress disorder

In this column, Kimmelin Hull, community manager of Science & Sensibility, Lamaze International's research blog, reprints and discusses a recent blog post series by acclaimed writer, lecturer, doula, and normal birth advocate Penny Simkin. Examined here is the fruitful dialog that ensued-including testimonies from blog readers about their own experiences with traumatic birth and subsequent posttraumatic stress disorder. Hull further highlights the impact traumatic birth has not only on the birthing woman but also on the labor team-including doulas and childbirth educators-and the implied need for debriefing processes for birth workers. Succinct tools for assessing a laboring woman's experience of pain versus suffering are offered by Simkin, along with Hull's added suggestions for application during the labor and birth process.     

Use of nonanatomical dolls in the sexual abuse interview

Controversy exists regarding use of anatomically detailed dolls in child sexual abuse evaluations because of concerns that such dolls may provoke false positive demonstrations of sexually explicit behavior. This study shows that children referred for medical evaluation of sexual abuse will use sexually explicit behavior to demonstrate what has happened to them with nonanatomical dolls as frequently as when they are interviewed with anatomically detailed ones. Over a two-year period, 136 children (aged 24 months to 10 years) were interviewed by the same pediatric interviewer. During the first year sexually anatomically detailed dolls (SAD) were used, and in the subsequent year nonanatomic dolls (NAD) were used. Data was analyzed according to age, sex, and demonstration of sexually explicit behavior. There were 67 children in the NAD group and 69 in the SAD group. Of the NAD group, 72% showed sexually explicit behavior compared to 68% in the SAD group. Comparisons using chi-square analysis revealed no significant differences between NAD and SAD. Results indicated that in the sexual abuse interview setting, use of sexually detailed dolls did not increase children's use of sexually explicit behavior to describe what had happened to them when compared to use of nonanatomical dolls, and that use of either type of doll provides similar information in the interview setting.     

Mainstreaming the Hearing Impaired Student‐‐An Area of Preparation Responsibility for Teacher Training Programs: A Pilot Study

Interviewing, as an information‐gathering tool for prospective teachers of the deaf, was used to document the perspectives which deaf children, their parents, teachers and administrators bring to the mainstreaming process. Data revealed the different, and sometimes competing priorities of mainstreaming participants; these priorities are discussed in terms of their impact upon the success or failure of the mainstreaming process and the preparation responsibilities of teacher training programs.     

What the Science Standards Say: Implications for Teacher Education

Journal of Science Teacher Education -