Interdependence between Culture and Education in Oromo

ABSTRACT:
Different writers affirm the interdependence between culture and education stating them as mutually supportive to each other. Obanya (2005), for instance, asserts culture and education as inseparable, stating that, even, the primary role of education to be acculturation. Obanya (2005:2) states, further, that, every society devotes considerable attention to transmitting its cultural heritage to the young where the trans-generational transmission of culture helps to cement human solidarity and ensure continuous survival of the society.

ARTICLE TEXT:
Interdependence between Education and Culture
By: Dr. Endalew Fufa K.
Different writers affirm the interdependence between culture and education stating them as mutually supportive to each other. Obanya (2005), for instance, asserts culture and education as inseparable, stating that, even, the primary role of education to be acculturation. Obanya (2005:2) states, further, that, every society devotes considerable attention to transmitting its cultural heritage to the young where the trans-generational transmission of culture helps to cement human solidarity and ensure continuous survival of the society. Demmeret (2010) states also that, issues of culture, language, cognition, community and socialization are central to learning. Mazonde (2005), further, illuminates the value of customary education in raising the standards of African children’s cultural awareness in terms of heritage preservation, adaptation to norms, use and preservation of resources, and visionary life. Ommotto (2010) underlines the fact that, if education means the bringing up of individuals in the society, every society must have a system of training its youth for good living. Kottak (2004) complements the above idea asserting that, culture, as a learned asset, passes from one generation to the other through the process of enculturation; and, hence, requires societies to work for its transmission. Under the umbrella for cultural transmission, there can be developmental assets sought with further rooms for creativity, flexibility, and positive entertaining of diversity. Here, given culture as the complex whole including knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, custom and other assets and habits of a certain society, a dependable rationale can be set that, culture helps people to create, remember and deal with ideas in the immediate and mediate conditions(Kottak, 2004:84).
Within the realm of social and cultural understanding (Lewis, 2002:41), significant advances in technology and techniques of economic production can be made in close association with the way humans conceive of themselves , their physical environment and their relationship to nature. Such relationships can be well-established when culturally responsive education with pertinent teaching and learning is realized. But, what is culturally responsive teaching and learning? How does it work? What values does it have?
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: What it is and how it Works
Richards, Brown and Forde (2006) state that, teachers in culturally diverse classrooms must create a situation where all students, regardless of their cultural backgrounds are welcomed and supported, and are provided with the best opportunity to learn. Gay (2002) adds also that, in addition to acquiring knowledge-base about ethnic and cultural diversity, teachers need to learn how to convert the diversity into cultural responsibility in terms of curricular and instructional strategies. Such a conversion, in turn, requires cultural sensitivity which demands knowing cultural differences and similarities, without attaching special values each trait.

Attached files:
Interdependence between education and culture.doc