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This book leaves no stone unturned in its comprehensive examination of the complex challenges surrounding academic freedom in Africa. Drawing on diverse perspectives and methodologies, it delves into the historical, philosophical, legal, and socio-political dimensions shaping academic freedom across the continent. The authors grapple with colonial legacies, tensions between Western and African notions of intellectual liberty, government authoritarianism, and institutional constraints that hinder open discourse and the pursuit of knowledge. The book highlights systemic obstacles and promising avenues for progress through case studies, comparative analysis, and empirical research, such as constitutional reforms, scholar activism, and regional networks. This thought-provoking volume offers critical insights into the state of academic freedom in Africa, emphasising the necessity of supporting African voices and agencies in the quest for meaningful intellectual autonomy. Academic Freedom in Africa is an essential read for students, scholars, policymakers, and anyone concerned with the future of higher education and democracy on the continent.
The papers in this volume were presented at a conference organized by the Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique (IFRA) at the University of Ibadan on the 26th and 27th of October 1998, as part of the 50 anniversary celebrations of the University. This conference brought together scholars from anglophone and francophone countries who have been collaborating on a research programme which is concerned with elite formation and the restructuring of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa. The project was originally conceived in 1996 by IFRA and the Centre d'Etude d'Afrique Noire (Bordeaux, France). Nigeria, with more than 50 per cent of the continent's university student population and 40 universities, constitutes the major thrust of the study; nevertheless the reports on Kenya, Senegal and Niger are equally informative and demonstrate that survival strategies and student unrest and 'cults' are not exclusive to Nigeria.
Academic freedom rests on a shared belief that the production of knowledge advances the common good. In an era of education budget cuts, wealthy donors intervening in university decisions, and right-wing groups threatening dissenters, scholars cannot expect that those in power will value their work. Can academic freedom survive in this environment—and must we rearticulate what academic freedom is in order to defend it? This book presents a series of essays by the renowned historian Joan Wallach Scott that explore the history and theory of free inquiry and its value today. Scott considers the contradictions in the concept of academic freedom. She examines the relationship between state powe...
Within this parameter, the main objective of the FSS research project was to identify the regulatory framework, institutional arrangements and established practices pertaining to governance, academic freedom and conditions of service of higher-education t
Most professors and administrators are aware that academic freedom is in danger of being brushed aside by a public that has little understanding of what is at stake. They may be only marginally aware that the defense of academic freedom is endangered by certain confusions concerning the nature of academic freedom, the criteria for its violation, and the structure of an adequate justification for claims to it. These confusions were enshrined in some of the central documents on the subject, including the 1940 Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure, agreed upon by the American Association of University Professors and the Association of American Colleges and endorsed by many professional organ...
In these seventeen essays, distinguished senior scholars discuss the conceptual issues surrounding the idea of freedom of inquiry and scrutinize a variety of obstacles to such inquiry that they have encountered in their personal and professional experience. Their discussion of threats to freedom traverses a wide disciplinary and institutional, political and economic range covering specific restrictions linked to speech codes, the interests of donors, institutional review board licensing, political pressure groups, and government policy, as well as phenomena of high generality, such as intellectual orthodoxy, in which coercion is barely visible and often self-imposed. As the editors say in their introduction: "No freedom can be taken for granted, even in the most well-functioning of formal democracies. Exposing the tendencies that undermine freedom of inquiry and their hidden sources and widespread implications is in itself an exercise in and for democracy."
Nigeria is in a long-standing crisis. Military rule has suffocated civil society and has entrenched a culture of repression, corruption, and official irresponsibility. The reign of Ibrahim Babangida has resulted in near total economic disaster for the country. The situation is so bad, as Julius Ihonvbere shows, that Nigerians are now saying that the days of colonialism were better. In this major new study, Ihonvbere searches out the sources of Nigeria's predicament. He finds them in the country's historical experience, and the consequences of that experience since gaining political independence.Nigeria has become a society in which its citizens live in fear and its youth emigrate to other co...
Academic freedom and institutional autonomy are essential for universities to produce the research and teaching necessary to improve society and the human condition. Academic freedom and institutional autonomy are increasingly important components of the development of democracy. At the same time, these fundamental democratic values are subject to pressure in many countries. The relationship between academic freedom, institutional autonomy and democracy is fundamental: it is barely conceivable that they could exist in a society not based on democratic principles, and democracy is enriched when higher education institutions operate on this basis. Higher education institutions need to be imbued with democratic culture and that, in turn, helps to promote democratic values in the wider society. None of these issues are simple and the lines between legitimacy and illegitimacy are sometimes hard to discern, as is illustrated by perspectives from Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and the Mediterranean region.