Education Commons^™

Drawing On The Past To Open Up Possible Futures. A Response To "The Cultural Contours Of Democracy: Indigenous Epistemologies Informing South African Citizenship", John Ambrosio

Democracy and Education

This article is a response to a qualitative study that examined how the indigenous African notion of ubuntu informs how some school teachers in a Black township in South Africa conceptualize Western-oriented narratives of democracy. While the study acknowledges important differences in how ubuntu is understood and defined, the author argues that it nonetheless tends to overlook them in order to harness ubuntu as a force for positive social change and national development. The author argues that ubuntu could potentially serve as a powerful cultural force for change, but this requires a context in which some of the moral qualities …