INTEGRATIVE CURRICULLUM APPROACHES

Abstract

The purpose of this collaborative social research also called action research action was to explore the perception of college professors from more than a dozen universities from different regions of post-conflict Somalia, their perception and openly teaching international electoral policy and practice (EPP), in the post-conflict Somalia’s classroom or in the public sphere. In addition, this action research study sought to develop understanding, meaning and root-cause analysis process in human performance in uncontrolled variations as the university lecturers displayed reluctance of teaching democracy related content for fear of public backlash due to the ideological divide. Methodologically, the author utilized Emerson, Fretz & Shaw (1995) observation protocol to gather data for analysis to reveal the perception of the 19 educators from 19 universities, and most importantly, on making informed decision on what the next step would be. The setting where the research took place was a training seminar on international electoral policy and practice (EPP), designed to teach the university lecturers from post-conflict Somalia. How the Somali educators can overcome the methodological, cultural and religious challenges when incorporating democracy related materials into the curricula in Somalia to boost the educational campaign on elections in Somalia which did not go to polls to freely elect a leader since 1967 elections. The author proposed The Culturally Competent Integrative Curriculum Approach to overcome the methodological dilemma.