This handbook reflects on quality-of-life in societies on the continent of Africa. It provides a widely interdisciplinary text with insights on quality-of-life from a variety of scientific perspectives. The handbook is structured into sections covering themes of social context, culture and community; the environment and technology; health; education; and family. It is aimed at scholars who are working towards sustainable development at the intersections of multiple scientific fields and it provides measures of both objective and subjective quality-of-life. The scholarly contributions in the text are based on original research and it spans fields of research such as cultures of positivity, wellbeing, literacy and multilinguism, digital and mobile technologies, economic growth, food and nutrition, health promotion, community development, teacher education and family life. Some chapters take a broad approach and report on research findings involving thousands, and in one case millions, of participants. Other chapters zoom in and illustrate the importance of specificity in quality-of-life studies. Collectively, the handbook illuminates the particularity of quality-of-life in Africa, the unique contextual challenges and the resourcefulness with which challenges are being mediated. This handbook provides empirically grounded conceptualizations about life in Africa that also encapsulate the dynamic, ingenious ways in which we, as Africans, enhance our quality-of-life.

This is the first volume providing a research platform to showcase research in the field of positive psychology and well-being science in African contexts. Next to enhancing context-sensitive theory and practice on the African continent, it also contributes to the global discourse in positive psychology and facilitates the development of a science that reflects and is relevant to complexity and diversity in a globalising society. This volume brings together work from African scholars, featuring research on theoretical perspectives on well-being in Africa, measurement of well-being in Africa, manifestations and dynamics of well-being in Africa, and well-being promotion in Africa. It stimulates further research in positive psychology and well-being science in the African context and globally, and emphasises the interconnectedness and situatedness of human functioning and well-being, contributing to a more balanced perspective on well-being in an international perspective. The volume benefits researchers, students and practitioners in Africa and other international contexts who study or apply the science of positive psychology and well-being in diverse contexts. Chapter 1 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

"Violence against children (VAC) is one of the most significant, widespread, and preventable threats to human development in our world today. VAC not only has direct consequences for children in a myriad of domains, including physical health, mental health, educational outcomes, and social relationships (e.g., Fry et al., 2018; Hughes, et al., 2017; Noonan & Pilkington, 2020; Norman et al., 2012), but emerging research also suggests that the incredible stress induced by VAC may result in the intergenerational transmission of negative outcomes, conferred through a variety of pathways. For example, children impacted by VAC may view violence as an acceptable method of conflict resolution and be more likely to engage in violent behaviors as they grow into adulthood, thus modeling violence for future generations (Affolter & Valente, 2019; Britto et al., 2014; Donaldson et al., 2017; Yale University & AÇEV Partnership, 2012)"--

Ubuntu is an African philosophical tradition that embodies the ability of one human being to empathize with another. It is the quintessence of African humanism, communalism, and belonging. As the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu anticipated, Ubuntu resonated with the moral intuition of the majority of black South Africans in the 1990s. As a result, it became the foundational ethical basis for articulating a new post-apartheid era of reconciliation and forgiveness in the face of a history marked by brutal racial violence. Yet Ubuntu, as a philosophy or ethical practice which has arguably come to represent African humanism and communalism, has not been sufficiently assimilated into contemporary philosophical scholarship. This anthology weaves interdisciplinary perspectives into the discourse on African relational ethics in dialogue with Western normative ideals across a wide range of issues, including justice, sustainable development, musical culture, journalism, and peace. It explains the philosophy of Ubuntu to both African and non-African scholars. Comprehensively written, this book will appeal to a broad audience of academic and non-academic readers.

The youth of today is confronted with a myriad of challenges of living in a world that has never been more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. These multifaceted challenges compromise their well-being. Fostering the well-being of young people across sociocultural boundaries, rather than of the select groups of privileged individuals, is a timely and worthy endeavor and should not take a back seat. The advent of Positive Education, which is an educational paradigm that emphasizes the goal of developing both cognitive abilities and well-being skills in students and young people in general, has offered a promising generic approach to promoting the well-being of young people. The twin goals of Positive Education are indeed aligned with two major views of well-being: eudaimonia highlighting the importance of one’s engaged pursuit of meaningful goals, and hedonia stressing the importance of one’s positive emotion and life satisfaction in one’s well-being. Their combination – that wellness is achieved when a person is feeling good and functioning well – has often been termed ‘flourishing’. Unfortunately, scholarly discussions on sociocultural influences on flourishing or well-being and ways of promoting it have been scarce. This volume addresses such a gap in a rigorous and timely manner. International scholars from culturally diverse backgrounds put together their thoughts and ideas in their respective chapter contributions that, collectively, invite us to mindfully take into account youth’s sociocultural and sociodemographic backgrounds in promoting their flourishing. This book, which embodies the ‘who’, ‘what’, when, ‘where’, and ‘how’ of youth well-being, will be extremely insightful and useful for scholars and researchers as well as policy makers and practitioners (teachers, interventionists, counsellors, youth mentors) who seek to promote the well-being of young people in their respective contexts and beyond.

Inclusive education has been phased into South Africa since 2001 but relies heavily upon adequate support services to support learners and teachers experiencing barriers to learning and development. This book focuses on the different levels of support provided in South African education – from School-based Support Teams to District-based Support Teams through to special and full-service schools, and how these could be reconceptualised to provide improved support to learners and teachers. Current research indicates that inclusive education is being implemented in varied and fragmented forms across the country, and the point of departure of this work is that education support services need to be improved and reconceptualised to ensure better support for inclusive education.

This book advocates for community-based research with vulnerable populations within the field of higher education. The chapters outline how research can democratize knowledge generation to make it more accessible and socially relevant, and emphasizes the value of the lived and experiential knowledge of vulnerable and marginalized populations. Rooted in a critique of the current practices of higher education that fail to support participatory and transformative research, the research is structured at micro, macro and meso levels to ultimately emancipate colonized thinking of stakeholders about power, privilege and participation. Focusing primarily on various contexts within the Global South, the contributors argue that the time is ripe for community-based research which combines the theoretical knowledge of the academy with the local, experiential knowledge of those experiencing the consequences of social inequality to co-construct knowledge for change.