Peter Onah Thompson , Adesheye Omitayo , Lilian Ouja Ademu , Benjamin Maiangwa
{"title":"African folklore: A tool for improving sustainable resource management practices in Africa","authors":"Peter Onah Thompson , Adesheye Omitayo , Lilian Ouja Ademu , Benjamin Maiangwa","doi":"10.1016/j.envdev.2024.101044","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Africa's traditional knowledge system sustained the continent and its people for millennia before the advent of Western knowledge and, even so, has continued to play a critical role in the advancement of the continent. We ask in this article if Africa's traditional education through storytelling/folktales has a role to play in the contemporary drive for sustainable development practices. To answer this question, we carried out a field experiment among preteen pupils in Nigeria. We taught an age-old African folktale among school-age pupils to one set of pupils and not in the control group and asked them how they would use and manage certain natural resources. We find that those exposed to an African folktale had a better appreciation for resource management than those who were not holding all else constant. We also discuss the implications of incorporating folktales into the Nigerian school curriculum and its potential benefits for resource management.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":54269,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Development","volume":"51 ","pages":"Article 101044"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environmental Development","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211464524000824","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Africa's traditional knowledge system sustained the continent and its people for millennia before the advent of Western knowledge and, even so, has continued to play a critical role in the advancement of the continent. We ask in this article if Africa's traditional education through storytelling/folktales has a role to play in the contemporary drive for sustainable development practices. To answer this question, we carried out a field experiment among preteen pupils in Nigeria. We taught an age-old African folktale among school-age pupils to one set of pupils and not in the control group and asked them how they would use and manage certain natural resources. We find that those exposed to an African folktale had a better appreciation for resource management than those who were not holding all else constant. We also discuss the implications of incorporating folktales into the Nigerian school curriculum and its potential benefits for resource management.
期刊介绍：
Environmental Development provides a future oriented, pro-active, authoritative source of information and learning for researchers, postgraduate students, policymakers, and managers, and bridges the gap between fundamental research and the application in management and policy practices. It stimulates the exchange and coupling of traditional scientific knowledge on the environment, with the experiential knowledge among decision makers and other stakeholders and also connects natural sciences and social and behavioral sciences. Environmental Development includes and promotes scientific work from the non-western world, and also strengthens the collaboration between the developed and developing world. Further it links environmental research to broader issues of economic and social-cultural developments, and is intended to shorten the delays between research and publication, while ensuring thorough peer review. Environmental Development also creates a forum for transnational communication, discussion and global action.
Environmental Development is open to a broad range of disciplines and authors. The journal welcomes, in particular, contributions from a younger generation of researchers, and papers expanding the frontiers of environmental sciences, pointing at new directions and innovative answers.
All submissions to Environmental Development are reviewed using the general criteria of quality, originality, precision, importance of topic and insights, clarity of exposition, which are in keeping with the journal''s aims and scope.
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
