Does the Village Still Raise the Child?

Beth Blue Swadener is Professor of Early Childhood Education at Kent State University and the coeditor (with Sally Lubeck) of Children and Families "At Promise": Deconstructing the Discourse of Risk, also published by SUNY Press, and coeditor (with Shirley A. Kessler) of Reconceptualizing the Early Childhood Curriculum: Beginning the Dialogue. Margaret Kabiru is Director of the Mwana Mwende Child Development Trust in Nairobi, and Anne Njenga is Lecturer of Early Childhood Education at Kenyatta University in Nairobi.

"Insightful. Substantive. Makes a major contribution to a sparse literature of early childhood and family ethnographies in Africa written from a collaborative 'decolonized' perspective." — Valerie Polakow, author of Lives on the Edge: Single Mothers and Their Children in the Other America"Remarkably fine coverage of social and economic variation as it exists in Kenya. A truly superb descriptive feat!" — Philip L. Kilbride, coauthor of Street Children in Kenya: Voices of Children in Search of a Childhood

• Acknowledgments Introduction: Decolonizing Research, Deconstructing Change Part I. Multiple Contexts for the Study 1. Child-rearing and Early Education in a Changing Kenya 2. A Collaborative Study Part II. Traditional Communities in Transition: Narok and Samburu 3. Narok District: It Takes Grandmothers to Raise a Maasai Child 4. Samburu District: It Takes a Clan to Raise a Child Part III. Tea and Coffee Plantations: Kericho and Kiambu 5. Kericho Tea Estates: It Takes Child Care Centers and Older Siblings to Raise a Child 6. Kiambu Coffee and Tea Estates: It Takes a Weighing Station and Supportive Manager to Raise a Child Part IV. Rural/Agricultural Contexts: Embu and Machakos 7. Embu District: It Takes Tradition and Intergenerational Support to Raise a Child 8. Machakos District: It Takes Preschool Teachers As Health Workers to Raise a Child Part V. Urban/High Population Density: Nairobi and Kisumu 9. Nairobi: It Takes Money and Partners to Raise a Child10. Kisumu Municipality: It Takes Ayahs and Preschools to Raise a Child Part VI. Conclusions, Recommendations, and Reflections 11. Making Meaning: Does the Village Still Raise the Child? Epilogue: Methodological ReflectionsAppendix A: List of Local CollaboratorsAppendix B: Research QuestionsAppendix C: Research Methodology and Description of ProceduresReferencesIndex