For this assignment, I chose to explore the website for the University of Victoria School of Child and Youth Care's collection of current research coming out of sub-Saharan Africa. Clicking through current research topics posted on this website, I saw that much of the research focus in sub-Saharan Africa is looking at how to create effective early childhood education programs. Much of the research is looking into details like assessments, organization, and community coordination of early childhood programs. I also noticed that a number of the studies took a look at parental involvement in early childhood education.
One of the interesting topics that I noticed in a number of the research projects was taking a look at how to incorporate indigenous traditions into early childhood care. I imagine these studies are very interesting and very geographically specific. One of the biggest surprises I had when looking through the early childhood research in sub-Saharan Africa was that there is not more research being done on the relationship between nutrition and development. Perhaps it was naive of me to expect nutrition to dominate the headlines in early childhood research as it does the news headlines. There were a few research projects on nutrition or the impact of diseases like HIV, but significantly fewer than I expected.
I found it very interesting how the website presented the community of research in sub-Saharan Africa. The impression I was given from their website was that there is a very collaborative environment across the continent and that researchers from their initiative are organized into groups based on geography that can then meet and support each other through research. What a cool idea!
Early Childhood Development (2005). University of Victoria. Retrieved from http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major_reports.php.
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