The study of interculturality ("intercultural competence"), its foundations and its effects in francophone Western Africa reveals the need for a reconceptualization of intercultural communication. A theory of interculturality should be interdisciplinary, non-positivist, critical and reflexive. Because conventional approaches and their applications create a spatial and temporal distance, and undervalue endogenous knowledges, they limit understanding and hamper reciprocal intercultural exchanges. / The observation of communication processes around a sub regional West African organization (the "Communaute economique de l'Afrique de l'Ouest") reveals that interculturality is not a characteristic of better educated Africans or of those most exposed to foreign cultures, and even less of Whites or of other members of dominant groups. Rather, it is more pronounced among women, members of marginalized ethnic groups and, above all, among urban marginals. Interculturality manifests itself through interactions. It is the result of singular positions (standpoints) rooted in endogenous knowledges, in training (in its broadest sense) and in the experience of subordination in pluriethnic contexts. / The texts that inform the dominant definitions of situations create a communicational and intercultural handicap, also linked to a superior status in the informal hierarchy. On the opposite, the mobility of an insider-outsider position confers an advantage, an aptitude for conversation, or for an egalitarian exchange in various local and imported spaces of culture and power. Such a position is a condition for intercultural studies and practices. Individually, it can be developed through a formal or informal initiation, empathy and an awareness of one's own limits. / In development programs, the interculturality acquired by certain members of marginal groups is at the origin of processes of diversion--a reorientation of resources towards locally negotiated ends--which reveal the endogenous conceptions of participation and social change. The study of interculturality in Africa thus supports the idea that a communicational approach to intercultural problems could be fruitfully applied in other contexts.

La bibliothèque mondiale est le système spatialisé complexe de tous les textes disponibles dans le monde. Aujourd’hui saisie par la révolution numérique et le multimédia, elle est pourtant construite à partir d’une figure ordinaire : la bibliothèque de livres. Dans un usage redéfini pour la géographie, la littératie désigne les pratiques et les politiques publiques de lecture écriture. La bibliothèque mondiale et la littératie sont deux objets ordinaires de la géographie et nous proposons de les prendre au sérieux en y travaillant la question des échelles et des mobilités : le niveau national est-il toujours le niveau d’organisation dominant des littératies dans le monde ? Quels y sont les devenirs voisins aux échelles infra et supra-nationales ?Pour dépasser une approche trop abstraite, nous avons fortement sollicité la parole des acteurs à travers l’entretien,dans une démarche de recherche-action et de neutralisation de la croyance littéraire. À la manière des New literacy studies, nous avons multiplié les petits terrains dans un inventaire géographique des formes et des niveaux scalaires (bibliothèques embarquées, Aran, provincialismes, prix Nobel). Nous avons également enquêté dans deux États-nations, leMali et la Corée du Sud, choisis pour leur écart au modèle français. Le jeu scalaire observé montre que la mondialisation de la littératie se développe de manière très différenciée selon les espaces, en fonction notamment du projet national. La torsion de ce niveau autrefois central libère/contraint les acteurs : les dynamiques multi-niveaux permettent alors d’interpréter les fonctionnements complexes. L’aménagement culturel est une question politique multiscalaire / The world library is a complex, specialized system comprising all the texts available all over the world. Though ingrained in the digital revolution and multimedia tools, its construction is nonetheless based on a fairly ordinary pattern : the library with books. In a sense redefined for the sake of geography, literacy designates practices and public policies regarding readingand writing. World library and literacy are also two common preoccupations of geography, which we offer to take seriously by working into them the issues of scale and mobility. That is, is the national level always the level of organization dominating literacies in the world ? What are, within these, the likely future outcomes close to the infra and supranational scales ?To go beyond an overly abstract approach, we have strongly sought out the testimonies of agents of literacy through interviews, in a quest combining research and action, as well as by debunking the literary belief. Along the lines of the New Literacy Studies, we have multiplied the small fields in a geographical inventory of forms and levels (dumped libraries, Aran, provincialisms, Nobel Prize). We have also investigated the issue in two nation-states – Mali and South Korea – chosen each for its relative distance from the French model. The game of scales under observation reveals that the globalization of literacy grows in a highly differentiated manner depending on the environments, particularly with regard to the national project. The twisting of this once central level liberates/constrains the agents, so that multilevel dynamics allow us thento interpret such complex workings. Cultural planning is a multi-scale political issue

It is against the background of new developments and initiates taking place in various countries to make basic nursing education systems more responsive and relevant to the ever-changing nature of society that a cross-national study of the current systems of basic nursing education of francophone African countries of WHO Afro Region was undertaken. The aim of the study was to describe and analyze the current systems of basic nursing education in Francophone African countries of WHO Afro Region with 'a view to providing guidelines for change toward a basic nursing educatian system that is in line with the recommendations of WHO (1994, 1985, 1984, 1966) and the various countries' health care delivery systems' policies. In the first phase, data was generated by means of a self-completion mailed questionnaire, administered to the members of the national regulatory bodies of nursing and nursing education from eighteen countries. The design of the above named questionnaire was based on the WHO (1994, 1985, 1984, and 1966) recommendations pertaining to basic nursing education systems. The main results of the findings of this phase showed two major trends. Firstly, more differences than similarities existed between the WHO (1994, 1985, 1984, and 1966) recommendations and the current basic nursing education systems of the countries under study. Secondly, discrepancies existed between the various countries' health care delivery systems' policies and the existing systems of basic nursing education. Finally, all the respondents expressed the views that the current basic nursing education systems are faced with educational and organizational changes and they agreed that there is a need to change the current basic nursing education systems. In the second phase, data was generated by means of three rounds Delphi questionnaires, administered to the national members of the regulatory bodies of nursing and nursing education as well as the members of national nursing associations from eighteen countries. The design of the first round Delphi questionnaire was based on the results of the first phase of this study, while the preceding round informed the design of the questionnaire of the next round. The main results of the findings showed similarities between the future orientation of the basic nursing education systems and the recommendations of the WHO as well as the global trends in the development of the basic nursing education. The stakeholders expressed the view that the national governments, the National Associations of Nurses and the Regional Office of WHO Afro Region need to play an active role in the transformation and the development of the basic nursing education systems in the Region. They suggested that the systems of educating nurses should move toward meeting the demands of the health care services and the global trends in the development of nursing and nursing education. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

This thesis is a survey of the development of religious and secular colonial education for African girls and women in Afrique Occidentale Francaise, from 1819 to 1960. The historiography of colonial education in AOF has dismissed the education of African girls and women as they were numerically too insignificant to merit any special attention. / This study argues that an examination of educational objectives, institutions and curricula provides a rare and valuable window on French colonial discourse on African women. It was a discourse fed by sexism and ethnocentrism, that ultimately intended to refashion women's gender identities and roles to approximate those prescribed by the French ideology of domesticity. / The system took the form of a number of domestic sciences training centres that aimed to change the very social definition of what constituted an African woman--to remake her according to the Euro-Christian, patriarchal ideal of mother, wife and housekeeper. Colonial educators argued that such a woman, especially in her role as mother, was the best conduit for the propagation of French mores, practices, and most importantly, submission to French hegemony. / The final decades of formal colonial rule in AOF saw the emergence of a small African male bourgeoisie. Members of this class, called "assimiles", accepted to varying degrees French language, lifestyle and values. This study further examines how many of them embraced the ideology of domesticity and became active in the debate on African women's education and the need to control and transform their gender identities.