Teaching and Learning the History of Africa

This stream explores how the history of Africa and African diasporas is taught. Decolonial movements have advocated for African history and historical perspectives to be better integrated into national education systems. Publishers and exam boards in the UK have subsequently commissioned resources on pre-colonial African kingdoms (Hodder, 2023), and the history of (African) migration to Britain (Pearson, 2020). In South Africa, the History Ministerial Task Team (DBE, 2018) has similarly recommended a greater curricular focus on oral histories and archeology in Africa, as well as African perspectives on world history.
However, how to teach African history remains controversial. This year Florida restricted how African American history could be taught, while scholars in Rwanda have raised concerns about the government’s role in shaping historical narratives of genocide both through curriculum and teacher sanctions (Thomas and van der Kooij, 2018). In the UK Black students have themselves reported experiencing the teaching of African history as a form of violence (Doharty, 2018).
The proposed stream therefore welcomes papers that explore diverse approaches, experiences, impacts, and challenges to teaching and learning African history. In particular, the proposed stream suggests the following areas of interest:
· International and comparative approaches to teaching African history
· Teaching controversial or contested histories of colonialism, enslavement, and genocide both in Africa and in former colonizing countries
· The experience of African or African diaspora students when studying African history
· Decolonized approaches to historical thinking skills and historical knowing
· Curriculum, textbooks and learning resources concerning African history
· Teaching and learning African history outside the history classroom (e.g. museums, monuments, family/community histories, films)
This stream speaks directly to ASAUK 2024’s theme of generation and regeneration by offering a timely opportunity to take stock of how young people around the world are learning – and learning to think – about the history of Africa.
Please be in touch with Dr Natasha Robinson at natasha.robinson@education.ox.ac.uk to discuss your ideas.