There has been the recurrent suspicion that community, harmony, cohesion, and similar relational goods as understood in the African ethical tradition threaten to occlude difference. Often, it has been Western defenders of liberty who have raised the concern that these characteristically sub-Saharan values fail to account adequately for individuality, although some contemporary African thinkers have expressed the same concern. In this chapter, I provide a certain understanding of the sub-Saharan value of communal relationship and demonstrate that it entails a substantial (...) allowance for difference. I aim to show that African thinkers need not appeal to, say, characteristically Euro-American values of authenticity or autonomy to make sense of why individuals should not be pressured to conform to a group’s norms regarding sex and gender. A key illustration involves homosexuality. (shrink)

The biggest challenges facing science education have possibly been accessibility and relevance to its target audiences—challenges that have become more pronounced with the increasingly multicultural nature of teaching and learning environments. How does one render accessible a field of inquiry that has often been viewed as unnatural, difficult, or the intellectual playground of a select few? How does one instil in students a sense of relevance of science to their own lives and experiences, especially as science has its own culture (...) with a special language, traditions, conventions, beliefs, and values; and if teaching and learning take place in a language and culture other than their home language and culture; and if it does not seem to engage, respect, and honour their prior knowledge, past experiences, and cultural perspectives? Recent decades have seen various approaches to multicultural education, the transformation of science education, and the learning of scientific knowledge, concepts, and practices in non-Western or indigenous societies. Chief among these approaches are the drives toward indigenisation, on the one hand and toward internationalisation, on the other. After reflecting on lessons from Africa regarding the debates around Africanisation and globalisation, we examine the idea of Transkulturalität[transculturality]—as contrasted with multiculturality and interculturality. (shrink)