Perpmon Children and Youth Services Review, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 209-211, 2002

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Book Reviews

Does tke Fillage Still Raise the Chiid? By Beth Swadener, Margaret Kabiru, and Atme Njenga New York: SUNY Press, 2000.

For many Western readers and researchers, the East African nation of Kenya conjures up images of crime, cormpfion, HIV/AIDS and slums teeming with poverty-stricken people. While Does the Hllage Still Raise the Child? briefiy menfions these scourgvs of contemporary Kanya, it mainly focuses on the "ordinary" expefiences of thousands of families raising young children. The book contrasts eight distinct regions of the country and show$ in great detail how Kenyan "villages" do or do not support their families in ~aring healthy, competent children.

Constructing an acoount of eollaborative research employing ethno- graphic methods and some qtmntitafive analyses is not easy. Further, try- ing to explain the complex relaüonships between the authors is made dif- ficult by virme of the rare experi~c~ these authors have had, sinc¢ they fLrst mer in 1992. Kabiru and Njenga are two intelligent, forward-looking national l¢aders in early childhood who have helped forge the develop- ment of Kenya's preschool system for about 30 years. From the early 1970s when the "Kenya Preschool Project ~ was funded, in part by the Bernard VanLeer Foundaüon, to the mid-1990s when the World Bank loaned Kenya $35 million for expansion of the system, Margaret and Anne have been at the center of government policy and community development. (They have since lefl the government's National Centre for Early Childhood Educaüon (NACECE) and now direct a charitable trust focused on early care and education, training, and community development). Beth Swadener, now professor at Arizona State University,

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210 Book Reviews

Swadener, now professor at Arizona State University, came to Kenya for the fwst Early Childhood Training Collaboration Seminar in 1992 - and was captured by the style and innovative strategies used by NACECE, un- der the leadership of Kabiru and Njengh to help the country focus on healthy development of young childrzn. The three workod together on training, writing~ and policy dzvelopment during Swadener's Fulbright in Kenya and on subsequent trips. This book is a result of a year-long re- search project funded by the World Bank in preparaüon for the country's early childhood loan.

The tendency of qualitative res¢a~hers to generalize ("some," "many," "most") is also prevalent in this book, but hard-hitting facts ("15% of the population is undor age 15") help support ¢ogent arguments. The authors employed a thematic construct for each of the district descrip- tions, and further emphasized the importance of "decolonization" of re- search. The result is a qualitative account of village childrearing from a cross-cultural, collaboraüve point of view.

The 1995 study by "the researcher" (Swadener) with the nation's "ECE leaders" (Kabiru and Njenga) caused the three to travel to remote areas, as weil as peri-urban and urban communities on a research quest to understand better how Kenyan families, communities and especially preschools were helping rear children today. The resulting book is genuine. These are writers who are not merely "co-authors" but true "co- laborers" in telling about Kenya's early childhood system in the midst of tribalism and growing poverty.

Kenya is tribal. The nation-state created in 1963 with Independence from being a British Protectorate has many vesüges of ethnic animosity and differences. This "village childrearing book" is subtle in its disclosure of etlmic/tribal differences: Masaii grandmothers help rear the children in dry, rund Narok; the Kamba patents ne, er Machakos rely on health work- ers-cum-early childhood teachers; Kisumu patents near Lake Viotoria live in remarkably poor and crowded housing; the families working on tea and coffee plantaüons near Kericho face economic survival that is apart from their traditional clan support.

What this book does weil is provide a lich context for what is the heart of childrearing: the relationships. Focus groups and individual inter- views result in views of respectful relationships in almost every district, but with the unique attributes of district, clan and tribe.

Book Reviews 211

Further, the chapter ütles - more than in many ethnographic, cross- cultural books- belp the reader focus on the unique differences in regions. In Samburu district, for example, "it takes a clan to raise a child." On the Kericho tea estates, "it takes child care cx, nters and older siblings to raise a child." In Embu district, "it takes traditions and intergenerational support to raise a child." Employing this device helps readers unfamiliar to East Africa get a more true picture of the life of families and communities

The book falls somewhat short when it comes to explaining how the regional differences arose. Why me the gnmdmothers so essential in Naork? (Is it becanse the Masaii parent~ traditionally nomads, are now leaving the "bookend generations" in a village while they roam with their cattle? Is it because access to health care has improved life expectancy and grandmothers are now mole common?) In the chapters on tea and coffee plantations, there seems to be little speculation as to how the actual employment terms affect the children. (Are the families "serfs" or is the situation like that of the "company store'~. Do the families remain forever on the plantation and rear all their children there?)

There are some minor typographical errors (e. g. page 89, paragraph 3 - "life" instead of "lives") and a few statistical problems (e.g. page 144 where the recounting ofwork roles for the number of people interviewed - 19 - did not match the earlier text stating that 22 people were in the sam- ple). But these errors on the part of editor or author(s) do not detract from the overall strong message in the book: that Kenyan families are 'not merely hapless victims of global change. They are proactive, resilient agents and creators of change' (p. 286). Future cross-cultural work, par- ticularly in Africa, should be influenced by this book through which na- tional leaders and a U.S. researcher share their talents and interests on an equal footing.

Diane Adams Wisconsin Child Care Research Partnership

dadams@facstaff.wisc.edu