Examining International Research Topics

In the last course we were asked to establish communication with an international contact. I was fortunate to meet Mahamadou, a university student in Mali. Over the course of the term, he helped enlightened me to several issues in his country such as poorly funded schools and huge numbers of students per teacher in even the earliest grades. Unfortunately, the ECDVU Sub-Saharan Africa had no research links for this particular country but it did have several for Nigeria, geographically the closest country to Mali represented.  One study focused on the extent to which fathers are involved with their children’s upbringing (Hua, 1986) and another on the care and nutrition of motherless babies’ (Akomas, 2004).

(Different community than one studies by Hua.)

Concerning the childrearing practices of fathers within the Shanna community in Nigeria, Hua (1986) found that traditions were fairly strongly upheld by the men; women were seen as the predominant care giver to all children before the age of five and then men became stronger participants – especially in the lives of their sons. It was a bit surprising to me to learn that by the time a man reached his twilight years (too old to work in the fields) he took on the role of early childhood provider with the assistance of the grandmother. Grandfathers provided guidance, instruction, mediation and entertainment expectantly. The article gave me the impression that this was seen more as a positive responsibility – never a burden. The only indications of negativity were the true enough statements about taking the bitter with the sweet where children are concerned (Hua, 1986). Unfortunately, the article is more than 20 years old – I would be very interested to see how this community has survived Westernization since.

Upon initial examination of the research article regarding orphaned children (Akomas, 2004), I am a bit confused by the mechanics of the paper. The abstract focuses almost exclusively on the nutritional support provided to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS with a minute mention of cognitive stimulation, but the outline includes such information as hygiene, immunizations, the father’s role and the adequacy of care for sick children (Akomas, 2004). Upon deeper examination of the study, I found it to be somewhat confusing in its organization and contain a great deal of repetition, creating for me a high level of frustration and low level of comprehension. Perhaps I am being too critical, but I did not get the sense of completion from this paper.  Nonetheless, this does appear to be primarily a “fact finding mission” and the recommendations are significant yet idealistic. Akomas (2004) includes a great deal of content, but in my opinion, there is little meaning.

I suppose it is apparent that there are significant structural differences between the two chosen research articles: so much so that it strongly affected my ability to follow the content. I’m not sure if that was partially the purpose of this assignment, but it was certainly an eye opening consequence!