Cognitive Processes and School Learning: A Review of Research on Cognition in Africa

Abstract

Cross-cultural investigation of cognition is an endeavor with its own special problems. Numerous and elusive variables to be controlled, experimental results that are frequently inconclusive or difficult to interpret, the necessity for skills in other disciplines-these are the nemeses of cross-cultural psychological researchers. Yet if psychology is to have a more universally applicable perspective on cognitive functioning than it possesses at the present time, psychologists will need to find ways to live and work with such difficulties. This paper will review some of the attempts at such research conducted by psychologists who seek to understand cognitive processes as they are manifested among African peoples. Before the formal study of cognitive processes across cultures began, there was a long dialogue among scholars of various persuasions comparing the mental faculties of people in different cultures. While this paper is concerned primarily with a review of experimental studies of cognition, an awareness of some of these earlier philosophical/theoretical discussions provides a useful backdrop for the consideration of the formal psychological studies. Crystallized within the discussions are some of the enduring issues that have confronted cross-cultural researchers. Often, these discussions centered around highly controversial issues. One of the major controversies of cross-cultural research is the question of whether or not the mental processes of people in nontechnological societies differ qualitatively from the mental processes of people in technological societies. European travelers, missionaries, and colonial administrators returning from Africa (as well as other places) often reported such differences in mentality. Various dichotomous labels were applied to these supposed differences in European and African thought: