Daphne W. Ntiri

Wayne State University | WSU · African American Studies

This article explores nuances of power and powerlessness in adult literacy, pedagogy in the civil rights movement of the 1950s. Drawing from interdisciplinary literature, this article places Bernice Violanthe Robinson’s adult, literacy reforms within the revolutionary framework of Highlander Folk, School in Monteagle, Tennessee, and shows how such...

The United States is in the midst of a growing literacy crisis. Illiteracy rates, particularly among African Americans and other minority groups, are profoundly troubling and demand innovative solutions. This paper contextualizes three salient barriers - incarceration, urban residential segregation and intergenerational illiteracy - post-industrial...

This article reviews the challenges encountered in the recruitment of urban older African-Americans in a study to explore the effects of interactive educational intervention on functional health literacy and diabetes knowledge. Our methods included identification of challenges related to the individual characteristics of seniors’ centers that serve...

A good part of the recent public debate in US educational policy circles has focused on the myriad challenges we face as a nation on literacy achievement particularly in urban communities and among African Americans. In this paper, we examine the problem of framing in literacy that confronts advocates and policy makers who seek to address this deep...

This study evaluated the effect of a transformative learning (TL) intervention on functional health literacy and diabetes knowledge in older African Americans. Twenty participants from senior community centers completed a six-session intervention. The short-form Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (s-TOFHLA), Literacy Assessment for Diabet...

This examination of the pedagogical and curricular characteristics and imperatives of an interdisciplinary studies program for adult learners, within a wider context of theory and practice, draws on the example of a general education course to demonstrate the vitality between interdisciplinary thinking and adult learning.

This book contains four papers, each a chapter, that share in the discourse of Paulo Freire and provide varying perspectives on the ways to advance social transformation and achieve a politically literate citizenry as a democratic enterprise. The following four papers are included: "Exploring the Limits of Participatory Democracy: Prudent and Decis...

This article presents gains in enrollment data of women and minorities in higher education. The article argues that although access and opportunity have dramati- cally improved for women, particularly "reentry" or "nontraditional" learners, the same is not true for minorities, especially African Americans. Nontraditional African American women are...

This university literacy tutorial program at a rehabilitation center for men illustrates that older college students ought to be considered a rich resource for much-needed community service work.

This monograph deals with some issues of how adults learn and ways to enhance teaching, thereby increasing adults' learning gains. The issues are the gaps between theory and practice, participation and retention, and methods and strategies, and the perennial debate about literacy's multiple meanings and their implications. "Participation and Retent...

The four papers in this collection form part of the nucleus of research by a task force of advanced social science doctoral students who were foreign nationals enrolled in Midwestern universities. The first three papers, each a chapter situated within an interdisciplinary context, draw from politics, sociology, and history to define constructs on t...

This document contains an evaluation handbook for adult literacy programs and feedback from/regarding the evaluation instruments developed during the project titled Adult Literacy and Evaluation Research Team (also known as Project ALERT), a two-phase project initiated by the Detroit Literacy Coalition (DLC) for the purpose of developing and testin...

Literacy is constantly evolving to meet the needs of African people, but the obstacles (or "roadblocks") to universal literacy in Africa are numerous. This paper sets out to analyze them. Some date from colonial regimes, which created elites. Since then, rapid population growth has outstripped gains in literacy, while the differences between male a...

A study of 859 rural women in 16 semipastoralist and semiagricultural villages in Southern Somalia reaffirmed the special significance of female circumcision as a source of full womanhood and an instrument for the control of female sexuality in Somalia. Although condemned in the West, this strongly embedded tradition enjoys unrestrained privilege i...

Somalia like many former colonial African countries has come to realize the vast potential of women in relation to socio-economic development and improved status of the family. This paper puts into research focus rural women of Somalia who have been largely ommitted in the field of social science studies. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to a s...

Summary

Computer-assisted instruction was utilized by Chrysler Learning, Inc. to study its impact on economically and educationally disadvantaged youth subjects in basic but specific academic areas within a given time period. The program took the form of an experiment that involved two groups: 1) an experimental group that participated in an educational tr...

Rutile production in southern Sierra Leone is enjoying unprecedented growth under Sierra Rutile Limited management. While Sierra Rutile Limited has taken new initiatives in increasing and improving opportunities in education, health and employment for the local inhabitants, expansion of the mines through dredging and flooding of the land is having...