Search

This article focuses on the comparative content analysis of the Arabic press. The purpose of this analysis was to determine the extent to which the reading publics in various Arab countries are being exposed to news of international events. Secondly, the kind of information the press is transmitting and the relative attention it is paying to events involving different countries of Europe, Asia and Africa. Lastly, the favorable or unfavorable images of these other countries that this information is likely to convey to the readers. The content analysis was carried out in two phases. The first concerned the content of the entire newspaper. In this phase, printed space was measured and multiplied by the average number of pages per issue to obtain base totals for each prestige paper. The second phase of the analysis was confined to the first page only. Items appearing on this page were classified in greater detail. In the study it was found that, despite the small size of many Arabic newspapers, papers, internationally significant news, as opposed to news of local or regional reference, absorbs a surprisingly high percentage of total space. Objective changes in the world power situation and in the nature of Arab-Western interaction have not succeeded in suppressing the Arab's preoccupation with external affairs.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Institute of African Studies at Fourah Bay College organised a symposium on the city of Freetown which brought together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to discuss the history and present social and economic structure of Freetown, under the joint directorship of Professor Eldred Jones, head of the Department of English at Fourah Bay College, and Christopher Fyfe, Reader in African History at Edinburgh University. A similar project on Ibadan was undertaken at the Institute of African Studies at the University there in 1963 and the collected papers are soon to be published by Cambridge University Press under the editorship of Peter Lloyd, Akin Mabogunje, and Bolanle Awe. More recently the University of Dakar held a series of discussions about Dakar and the resulting papers are to be published by Présence Africaine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents the author's accounts on the development of science education in Ghana, Africa, as based from a working paper prepared for the Fourteenth Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs. These accounts are being derived from the author's observations during the six months he spent in 1963-64 as a visiting professor of physics at the University of Ghana. The author said that his length of stay in Ghana was long enough to gain an impressive view of people's great efforts to overcome their difficulties, of their optimistic belief in progress through education, and finally of their openmindedness and warm hospitality.

The article presents a pre-election survey in a semi-literate society. Public opinion survey techniques have become very useful instruments for the administrator of the now rapidly developing under-developed areas. In this article, the authors describe some of the special problems involved in a pre-election survey done in Africa. They conclude that, though the difficulties are different from those facing researchers in Western society, the techniques developed in literate countries can be applied in radically different environments. Public opinion surveys among the indigenous populations of African territories present problems, which are intriguing but as yet very little explored. Self-governing institutions are being established in some of these territories more rapidly than are educational institutions and the ballot-paper is already in the grasp of many a hand that has never held a pen. This inquiry was on too small a scale to bear the weight of much generalization but it does suggest that the difficulties of making public opinion surveys among predominantly illiterate African populations are not insuperable.

This paper presents summary statistics of immigration into the West Indies, under indenture or government sponsorship, during the period 1834-1918. The sources reveal a few discrepancies, but are sufficiently consistent to permit the construction of a series for each of the ethnic groups introduced. Most of the problems involved in constructing these series centre around the fact that a variety of sources have to be utilised. Immigration figures of East Indians, Portuguese, Chinese, Europeans and others into the several West Indian colonies have been prepared for each calendar year or season, but to conserve space are presented here in summary form. In the case of African immigration it is possible to give their country of origin. The only group of immigrants who were involved in return movements of any consequence are the East Indians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the regional planning problems in Ashanti, Africa. Accordingly, the paper examines the problems of Ashanti, an area of the Gold Coast lying almost entirely within the tropical forest, which will describe some of the barriers to rapid progress. The paper also cited some of the difficulties to be faced by anyone bringing technical skill and experience to the assistance of a population which is fast becoming conscious of new needs. Moreover, two stages in working with these problems are also being discussed.

The article reports on attitude content and agreement set in autonomy-authoritarianism items for the United States, African, and Philippine university students. For the past 10 years, the relationship between attitude content and agreement set in a variety of scales has been discussed in the social-psychological literature. The problem is that when a person is asked to agree or disagree with a statement from a scale, he may or may not have a relevant attitude, so his response may indicate either attitude content or a response tendency to agree or disagree. One method for dealing with this problem is to use balanced scales where half the items are scored in each direction. Thus, in developing a 36-item Autonomy-Authoritarianism scale for cross-cultural comparison, an equal number of autonomy and authoritarian items were included. The present paper will consider the implications of these findings for the problem of attitude content and agreement set. These results have the advantage of extending the problem to several non-European groups and to a new set of items.

The Centre africain de formation et de recherche administratives pourle développement (C.A.F.R.A.D.) is an Institute for African Training and Research in Administration for Development, which held its first seminar in February 1966, on the problems of co-ordination of government departments in economic affairs. This led to an examination of the problems posed by the breaking down of administration outside the capital into smaller units, which was the main theme of the November seminar. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Perhaps a major decision that must be made by the organisers of professional conferences is whether to structure them in terms of a particular theme or alternatively to allow for a wide diversity of presentation and topics. If the former course is followed there is some danger that specificity of focus will be achieved at the expense of over-all attendance, but this did not appear to be the case at the recent meeting of the A.S.A., attended by over ioo members. Fortunately, the subject of the conference, ‘Education in Africa: current experiment and research’, was itself diffuse enough to enable contributions to be forthcoming from a wide variety of disciplines and from scholars whose research preoccupations were extremely diverse. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This year it was the turn of Dar es Salaam to act as host to the social scientists, now numbering nearly 200, from the three constituent colleges of the University of East Africa, together with visitors from the Universities of Malawi and Zambia, from Tanzanian government ministries, and places as widely separated as Kinshasa and Leeds. As at last year's conference (reported by Martin Lowenkopf in The Journal of Modern African Studies, IV, 4, 1966), the discussions were trans-disciplinary, even if the tight timetable of parallel disciplinary panels prevented delegates from taking full advantage of this. This reporter was unable to range far beyond the history meeting-room. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This conference brought together over 70 social scientists from the Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ugandan constituent Colleges of the University of East Africa (with visitors from Zambia, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, and Rhodesia) for their annual inter-disciplinary, or rather trans-disciplinary, deliberations. Why ‘trans-disciplinary’? Because the historians discussed nationalism, politics, and church movements; political scientists discoursed on economics, rural settlement, agriculture, and education; sociologists criticised political decisions and economic criteria which hampered their investigations into resettlement programmes; and the economists, while speaking mostly about economics, were represented at virtually all panels, apparently to guard their disciplinary preserve against intrusions, presumptions and, in one case, elision with political science. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A recent trio of books by Professor Ali Mazrui deals largely with the phenomenon and impact of Africa's emergence into independence. The Anglo-African Commonwealth (Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1967) argues the fertilising influence of English and English liberal ideas on the growth of African nationalism, and explores the changing character and role of the Commonwealth due to its progressive ‘Africanisation’ over the past decade. On Heroes and Uhuru-Worship (London, Longmans, 1967) is a collection of papers on ‘the politics of African independence’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In mid-1972 the continent of Africa had a population of 364 million or 9.6 percent of the world population of 3,782 million. The annual crude birth and death rates which were 47 and 21 per 1000 respectively produced a growth rate of 2.6 percent per annum, a rate second only to that of Latin America. The African population will double in 27 years. The population is very young with 44 percent under 15 years of age while only 3 percent is 65 and over. This paper will deal with two issues: What are the population problems in Africa and what are the African peoples and governments doing about them? Whether Africa has a population problem is a topic that will continue to be debated for the rest of this century. It is an issue on which reasonable and intelligent people disagree. The author's position is to say categorically that a problem does exist and then go on from there. This article also attempts to review the knowledge of family planning in Black Africa. The necessity for massive action on the part of governments has been emphasized. The readiness of the population is not in doubt. The political risks the elite: political, military and intellectual, runs should be completely spelled out in any communication addressed to them.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using an ecological perspective, one aspect of the relationship of social distance and physical distance is analyzed in the three largest cities in Israel. The principal aim of the paper is to examine ethnic (country of origin) residential segregation as an indicator of social patterning within the society. Despite the different demographic, topographical and functional characteristics of the three cities, fairly similar patterns of ethnic segregation are found using the technique of Smallest Space Analysis (SSA-I) to analyze index of dissimilarity matrices. Patterns of ethnic segregation are then related to the SES of sub-quarters to determine the nature of the internal structure of the cities. It is suggested that ethnicity is an important variable in the process of social stratification in urban Israel, at least insofar as ecological relationships are concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the International Conference of the International Missionary Council held in LeZoute, Belgium from September 14 to 20, 1926. The conference marks a decided advance over anything yet attempted in coordinating and strengthening the forces working for a Christian civilization in Africa. Previous to the conference, a special African number of the International Review of Missions was brought out with a remarkable collection of able papers from different viewpoints, Natives, South African whites, missionaries, scholars, and government officials. This number is itself a contribution to Africa with its informing discussions of the many phases of the task confronting Christian civilization in Africa. The conference was composed of over two hundred persons representing first of all, the missionaries themselves, engaged in the various parts of Africa, second, missionary societies and boards responsible for the missionary policy, and third, representatives of various governments. The meetings were presided over by Dr. Donald Fraser, and the program was carefully planned by J. H. Oldham, Secretary of the International Missionary Council. To their wise planning and balanced judgment was due in no small measure the fact that so many persons, with a great variety of opinions, could sit together for a week and spend their time in profitable discussion of the things of common interest to all, and in general, to avoid needless controversial issues.

A review has been presented of methods whereby attitudes can be studied in African communities in various stages of transition from tribal to `Western culture. The techniques of the directed interview, group discussion, TAT, incomplete sentences, and attitudes inventory were discussed. In the measurement of African attitudes the problems of rapport and of validity require particular attention. In addition to the usual validity problem whether verbalised attitudes are consistent with actual behaviour, there is the difficulty, in the case of African informants, of ensuring that the verbalised attitudes reflect their actual beliefs, ideas, and feelings. This is as much a matter of the correct choice of method and its skillful manipulation as of the establishment of proper rapport. Important ingredients of successful rapport are the careful timing of investigations with reference to events of cultural or local political significance; the use of the vernacular; the avoidance of pencil and paper except in the case of well-educated groups; the correct contacts and the employment of carefully selected and trained field-workers, preferably graduates in the social sciences. Validity can be determined in a number of ways, depending on the nature of the investigation and the method employed. Checks on facts implicit in the formation of an attitude; group differences in attitudes related to the particular role and status in society of the members of each group; changes in attitudes consistently related to social circumstances, have all been found useful as validity indicators. In work situations, job attitudes can also be related to assessments of work performance by supervisors, though conflicting role expectations in multi-racial societies may render merit rating criteria suspect. The problem of structuring TAT pictures in such a manner that attitudes relating to specific areas of interest will be evoked was discussed in some detail. Research into the development and functioning of perceptual habits in African cultures is necessary, both as a basis for designing TAT series, and for the interpretation of responses. Details were given of a promising inventory, designed to measure attitudes towards Western customs, ethical and legal concepts, and administration of justice. The inventory presents conversations between Africans who discuss the correct mode of conduct in a variety of situations. Each topic is discussed by five speakers whose reasons for acting or not acting in a particular manner are ranked by the subjects. Statistical treatment yields the relative strength of eight different attitudes in individuals and communities. It was shown that the reliability of the scale is high, .92 for the rank order in which the attitudes were placed, and from .85 to .51 for the internal consistency of six of the eight attitudes. Validity data were also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the third paper in a series that provide results of studies that describes the site and vegetation which are in many respects typical of miombo woodland in Western Tanzania. It is the author's view that the Forest Reserve has probably not been cultivated for the past 50 years as throughout the miombo, cultivation has certainly occurred at times in the more distant past. It is suggested that the shifting cultivation is identified as the mostly used agricultural system in miombo areas of Tanzania if enough land is available.

Two dialectical tendencies in military affairs have characterized the ethos of Tanzania under Julius Nyerere. One is a marked distrust of men professionally under arms at home and in inter-African relations. The other is a faith in military or quasi-military solutions to some of the remaining colonial problems, in Africa. In this paper,author hopes first to demonstrate that there has been a tradition of anti-militarism in Tanganyika, going back well into the days before the union with Zanzibar. Involved in this is the story of East African integration at large. This article then examines the growth of militancy in African liberation movements and how this affected the nature of Tanganyika's involvement in such movements. Tanganyika attained internal self -government in the same year in. which the Congo attained her independence. Tanganyika also shared a border with the Congo! This double-nearness to the Congo's experience caused speculation about Tanganyika's future as she approached independence.

The article focuses on the control and ownership of press in Africa. It says that the problem of Africa when it comes to the press is on how to consolidate the interests in mass communications to build a viable system and how to resolve the danger of total constriction of freedom of expression. It states that the ownership of the African press can be classified into religious press, party press, commercial press, and government press. It adds that it is viewed that the foreign-owned press under the control of foreigners is not dedicated to serve the interest Africa.

Presents several abstracts related to economics, published in the March 1963 issue of the journal 'Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft und Statistik.' Scope of monetary policy in an African country; Concept of industry and the theory of consumer demand; Estimation of the annual increase in the total labor productivity in Swiss economy.

African Ranches Ltd., a subsidiary of a Liverpool firm which later became part of the United Africa Company, was the only private cattle ranching enterprise ever established in Northern Nigeria. The company operated a 16,000-acre ranch in western Bornu province from 1914 until 1923, when it was given up to the government. Although ranching was officially discouraged, for a time it looked as though it might succeed. The vicissitudes of this early ranching scheme are chronicled in this paper, with data coming principally from the National Archives in Kaduna and Ibadan, Nigeria. and the Public Record Office, London. Although this is an historical study of a unique enterprise, it offers instructive comparison with recent state-owned ranches in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on nationalism in United States. There are scores of new States in Asia and Africa that are trying to set up free societies. It is a "new birth of freedom" on a grand scale. It is in fact freedom's greatest test, for it involves the older free regimes of Europe and the United States. If truth counts over charity, then one must point out that the new States will fail, if not all, then all but a few. Some are already succumbing to the initial perils of liberty that the last paper of the Federalist warned Americans against: "anarchy, civil war, a perpetual alienation of the States from each other, and perhaps the military despotism of a victorious demagogue." The real wonder is in believing that national unity could ever arise in freedom among the many units that nowadays arrogate to themselves the name of nation. They are nations only to the map maker. Many are areas marked off only for colonial administrative convenience; some have dozens, even hundreds, of languages, several antagonistic religions; a still uncounted welter of tribes living in mutual ignorance or traditional war; and above all there stands the great gulf between the village primitive and the urban modern.

Economic growth was a subject of interest and concern to West African intellectuals in the nineteenth century, as it is to their successors today. Yet these pioneer thinkers had no theory or analytical tools designed specifically to explain the economic conditions facing them. To fill the void, Africans in the British colonies imported, modified, and even improved on portions of the social science apparatus used by the rest of the nineteenth-century English-speaking world. This paper describes certain highlights of the process whereby economic ideas, which constituted an important segment of Western technology, were transferred to British West Africa and were assimilated in the course of social modernization. The importation of economic doctrine was both influenced by and a determinant of growth. In the extent to which West Africans of a century ago found it necessary to reject as inappropriate or modify drastically economic doctrine received from abroad, this account suggests useful comparisons for the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examines the oral conditions of nomadic African Bushmen. A previous study which discovered an almost complete lack of tooth decay among a population of Bushmen of the Kukong Pan is mentioned, noting the importance of the study presented in the paper, which seeks to determine the reasons for the Bushmen's lack of dental caries. The Bushmen's diet and nutrition are also described.

This year's annual seminar of the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, organised by Professor Carl Gösta Widstrand, the director of the Institute, was devoted to boundary problems. It was an interisciplinary gathering, attended by some 30 scholars, from 12 countries. The daily proceedings were divided into two: in the mornings, the papers were delivered as public lectures at the University, and in the afternoons, the seminar met for discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]