Roles of Education in the Development free essay sample

In the context of African studies, the researcher believes that the notion of taboos has been an essential element of African religion and culture. He reckons that taboos do not only constitute a part of African cultural heritage but also provide a good explanation of that heritage. Justification The researcher decided to focus on taboo in African culture from a general point of view. He believes that taboos are an essential concept in African culture and that to understand them will enable him to infer better its psychological, religious and social consequences. Purpose The purpose of this work is to explore a concept of taboos in Africa. It will be done by defining taboos, providing examples and the way they can be categorized. A special attention will be given to the the role of taboo in maintaining social structures of African society. Methodology. This research is an ethnographic investigation that is interested not so much about studying people but rather in learning from people. We will write a custom essay sample on Roles of Education in the Development or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Such an investigation takes place in order to understand the way people process their experiences (Spradley, 1979, p. 3) or â€Å"to get inside their heads†(Spradley, 1980, p. 10). The researcher chose a qualitative approach in designing the survey. Due to the very nature of this particular research with its topic, a non-probability approach to sampling was taken. Within that approach, a purposive/judgmental way of sampling was decided upon. Russell (1994, p. 95) says that: â€Å"In judgment sampling, you decide the purpose you want an informant (or a community) to serve and you go out to find one†¦ Purposive samples emerge from your experience in ethnographic research. You learn in the field, as you go along, to select the units of analysis†¦that will provide the information you need†. Methods of collecting data Once the researcher has decided upon his topic, he created a questionnaire containing open-ended questions. This questionnaire was used by him during interviews with the participants of his research. The questions were formulated in a way that their meaning was supposed to be easy to understand to the respondents in order to avoid ambiguity (Russell, 1994, p. 268-269). The questionnaire was a starting point of a semi-structured interview taking place with participants concerning various aspects related to taboos as well as other cultural practices as suggested by Prof Katola and personal interest of the researcher and his field assistant. During each interview, notes were taken by the researcher and his field assistant. In all cases, the permission was asked and given by the respondents to do it. Methods of interpreting data Taking into account the nature of ethnographic research, a qualitative way of collecting data and the intended method of presentation of finding, the researcher chose content analysis methods to interpret data. When applying that method, â€Å"the task of the researcher is to come up with a set of categories and then to proceed to count the number of instances that fall into each of those categories. What is important is the fact that those categories must be sufficiently precise to enable other researchers to arrive at the same results when examining the text† (Dominik, 2007, p. 53). The respondents The researcher focused on interviewing people from various African communities Kenya: Kikuyu, Samburu, Kisii, Luhya, Luo in Kenya, Akan from Ivory Coast, Bantadu from DRC. All respondents were adults, most of them of advanced age. The respondents were selected because of their tribal affiliation, gender, age and an assumption that they would be able to share with the researcher their cultural knowledge about taboos. Languages used were: English, Swahili and in some instances French. Ethical issues At the beginning of each interview, the respondents were informed about the aims of this research, the way in which data collected was going to be used for writing this assignment and were asked for permission for the researcher to take notes during the interview. They were assured that they would not be personally identified in the final paper. The limitations of the research This research does not aim at providing particular examples of taboos within a given community. Its objective is to explore the role of taboos within African culture. Such an exploration is based on a very limited number of respondents. In the final part of the work, some generalizations will be made that may not necessarily apply to some African communities. Assumptions It was assumed that the information provided by the respondents were true and that it reflected certain beliefs, not only of that particular person, but also of his or her community. Another assumption made at the very beginning of the research was that the respondents were familiar with the concept of taboos and were able and willing to provide relevant information. Field research findings