History and Literature 97: Education and Empire in the Modern World

The subject heading Textbooks -- Eritrea -- History brought up a German study of the role of textbooks in Eritrea's national development, Nationenbildung in einem multiethnischen Staat.

My German isn't good enough to read this book easily, but I decided to see if the Bibliography included any English-language material. In Google Books, I found a preview of the book that included the bibliography; and there I found Edward Shizha's essay "Reclaiming Our Memories: The Education Dilemma in Postcolonial African School Curricula":

"Sociologists in Africa argue that postcolonial school knowledge continues to mirror that of colonial education . . . Academic and often irrelevant ways of learning are emphasized . . . the knowledge systems . . . are still largely embedded in colonial constructs. Knowledge constructs, both in content and pedagogy, are highly colonial and teach students a foreign culture and worldview. Andreas Huyssen, cited in Rust (1991) postulates that colonial knowledge is associated with both 'inner and outer imperialism'(p. 617). Consequently, the need to redefine and reconstruct school curricula in Africa and de-legitimize Western defined knowledge cannot be overemphasized."

(Shizha's essay is a chapter in Issues in African Education: Sociological Perspectives, p. 65-83)