Schooling as Uncertainty

In today's uncertain world few beliefs remain as firmly entrenched as the optimistic view that more schooling will lead to a better life. Though this may be true in the aggregate how do we explain the circumstances when schooling fails to produce certainty or even does us harm? <i>Schooling as Uncertainty</i> addresses this question by combining ethnography and memoir as it guides readers on a 30-year journey through fieldwork and familyhood in Tanzania and academic life in the USA. <br/>Using reflexive longitudinal ethnographic research the book examines how African youth particularly young women employ schooling in an attempt to counter the uncertainties of marriage child rearing employment and HIV/AIDS. Adopting a narrative approach Vavrus tells the story of how her life became entangled with a community on Mount Kilimanjaro and how she and they sought greater security through schooling and to varying degrees succeeded.