Department Member, Department of Psychology
Professor, Coordinator of Graduate Studies
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
About
Robert Serpell
is a researcher, teacher and writer, who has spent most of his adult life in Africa.
Born and raised in England, he first arrived in Zambia in 1965 as a Junior Research Fellow of the Human Development Research Unit, on the founding staff of the University of Zambia (UNZA). In 1979 he became a naturalized citizen of Zambia, where all of his children were born and started their formal education.
Formerly Director of UNZA’s Institute for African Studies (1977-83), Director, Graduate Studies program in Applied Developmental Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), USA (1989-2001), and Vice-Chancellor of UNZA (2003-2006), he is currently Professor of Psychology at UNZA, and was Convenor for the recent 2010 international congress in Lusaka Zambia of the ISSBD (International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development): www.issbd2010.com
In addition to contributing to a wide range of scholarly journals and edited volumes, he has published four books, entitled Culture’s influence on behaviour (1976), Mobilizing local resources in Africa for persons with learning difficulties or mental handicap (1984), The significance of schooling: life-journeys in an African society (1993), and Becoming literate in the city: the Baltimore Early Childhood Project (2005). His primary interests are in cultural aspects of human development, intelligence, multilingualism, literacy, assessment and intervention services for children with disabilities and their families, and educational curriculum development, with special attention to cultural context, and to the region of sub-Saharan Africa.
