Understanding Academic Freedom from the African Perspective: The Case of Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

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Often studies on academic freedom deal with the extent to which institutions comply with norms in terms of the rights of academics according to international standards. This talk departs from this approach in reporting an empirical investigation of how academics understand academic freedom. The study employed qualitative research methods to distinguish conceptions of academic freedom among instructors of social sciences at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. Four qualitatively different ways of understanding academic freedom, based on the distance between the self and the perceived threats to academic freedom, were identified. These findings suggest that debates about academic freedom and policy should extend beyond institutional perceptions to include faculty perceptions of academic freedom.

Lecture and Discussion by Demoze Degefa
Instructor and PhD Candidate,
College of Education and Behavioral Sciences
Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Sponsored by the Office of the Dean and the Department of Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education
In partnership with Addis Ababa University