Why the Enculturative Context of Moral Education Matters

Abstract Auto-ethnography is an effective methodology to reflect upon the moral values and their acquisition among the Wagogo people in central Tanzania against the background of postmodernity. In so doing I have identified the enculturative contexts within which I came to acquire the moral values that I live by, in particular my immediate family (i.e. my parents), the religion I was brought up in, and traditional school experiences (i.e. my initiation). I argue that despite contemporary theories of African character formation generating from the impact in Africa of cultural diversity and neuroscientific research, our traditional enculturative contexts of parenting, religious upbringing, and indigenous initiation ceremonies continue to have a central and enduring impact on the development of moral values among the Wagogo people of central Tanzania.