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This chapter presents the case for the sociology of Africa. Although Africa provides a diverse stage for the study of societies, attempts to build and develop an integrated sociology of Africa have yet to be made by social scientists and sociologists. While sociological knowledge is being produced by both the African diaspora and those living on the continent, it does not yet constitute an organized sociology of Africa. The handbook demonstrates that there is a timely need to broaden the sociological understanding of African societies by illustrating the pertinence of relevant sociological themes. The themes explored constitute the integral components of the sociological knowledge of African societies. The key topics include the context and perspectives of the sociology of Africa, race, ethnicity and religion; gender, sexuality and intersectionality; medical sociology; political economy and development; crime and violence; and the family and education.

Despite holding rich resources of minerals, metals and oil, most of the African continent remains poor. Forty-five per cent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is extremely poor (Burns et al., 2006). Education indicators in Sub-Saharan Africa are also well below the average of developed nations. The region provides higher education to just 3.5 per cent of the college-age population as against 60 per cent in developed nations (Zeleza, 2002). Science and scientific research in Africa need to be looked at against the background of this grim reality. Worthington, in his monumental work Science in the Development of Africa (1958), captures the situation of science in Africa: In the 1920s, there were few scientists and not much was done for them … In the 1930s conditions were beginning to improve, but nearly all science was on a territorial and isolated basis … In the 1940s many organizations took shape, especially designed to enable scientific men and women to do good work. In the 1950s the territorial and regional barriers are breaking down through inter-African cooperation. By the 1960s we may see African science taking its full and proper place in the development of the continent. (Worthington, 1958, cited in Keay, 1976: 88)

SEYMOUR, Susan C., WOMEN, FAMILY AND CHILD CARE IN INDIA: A World in Transition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 323pp., Rs. 595 softcover. The book is an outcome of a meticulous anthropological research spanning a period of three decades in a `rapidly urbanizing and modernizing,' yet backward, region of India. The author's concern is to grasp the cultural and structural dynamics of the families in two areas of Bhubaneswar, the capital city of the State Orissa. Within the family, the focus again falls on the lives of women and children. To the author, India's 'culturally idealized family,' which gives prominence to the collective interests, is male oriented, both in terms of its structure and values and therefore it is patrifocal family structure and ideology. Subordination of personal interests to collective interests of the joint household is manifested in a variety of forms. Selecting 24 Hindu families from a caste-stratified area (Old Town) and from a bureaucratic centre in the city (New Capital), representing 'caste' and 'class' systems of stratification, Susan Seymour compares the two systems of family and child rearing practices. The differences in the systems are quite revealing. In India, patrifocal joint family is in a process of transition and it is found in a number of ways and patterns. Sexual segregation is expressed on several occasions in the life cycle of an Indian, particularly during functions and ceremonies. Gender differentiated roles and responsibilities remain to be a strong principle of the Indian family. Women are still expected to confine themselves to their private life, looking after the children and engaging themselves in domestic chores. Childhood experiences for children in the Old Town are characterized by the reinforcement of interdependence from the early stages of childhood which is inculcated through a number of techniques, namely, the need to rely on a number of persons for care and attention, incipient identification with extended family and the elders being in control of them. The child also learns to relate himself/herself to the hierarchy of others and in the 'case of girls, they get to know about the roles and statuses they have to assume in their life. Motherhood is central to the patrifocal structure and ideology, and girls are brought up to become mothers. At the same time, women in the given ambience form support networks among their friends and kin and they have `clear spheres of responsibility and influence. …