Cultural Sensitivity in the Study of Language and Literacy Interventions: A View from Africa
Contributing author: Yonas Asfaha. Describing cultural sensitivity There are a number of points to highlight when we discuss cultural sensitivity or sensitivity to local contexts. Many educational interventions in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, for example, borrow key ideas from interventions developed and trialled in high-income countries. It is not always the case, however, that these interventions are adequately suited for the new context. Even when adaptations are made or planned to be made, there is still the huge task of understanding the context, with all its cultural and linguistic diversities and unique social stratifiers, into which the borrowed ideas are introduced. The key question then is about how we achieve an understanding of local contexts. One way of answering these questions is to assess cultural sensitivity when planning new studies by looking into the intervention design, instrumentation, implementation, and analytic plan. Cultural literacy practices such...