CSSH, HU, Organizes Public Lecture on Social Learning.

Prof. Barry Hewlett from Washington State University, USA, speaks at Hawassa University at a public lecture organized by the college of Social Science and Humanities on January 29, 2024.

Prof. Zeleke Arficho, Dean of CSSH, opened the session expressing his gratitude for Prof. Hewlett and WSU for choosing HU to collaborate with in knowledge transfer and staff capacity building over the years.

In his presentation, Prof. Hewlett pointed out that social leaning is a key feature of culture as beliefs, practices, knowledge, and habits learned from others and shared by a group persist in time and space. He hoped that understanding from whom children learn may help to understand the nature of culture.
Taking examples from his research on social learning among hunter-gatherer children, he provided insights into human nature of learning such as modes of cultural transmission (vertical learning between parent and child, horizontal learning among peers, and friends, one –many learning between a leader/teacher and a group) with risks contributing to maladaptive cultural variants.

At the conclusion of the lecture, Dr. Samuel Jilo (Vice President for Administration and Development at HU and an alumnus of WSU) extended his hearty appreciation to the speaker for sharing his rich knowledge and experience in human culture and CSSH gifted him with Sidama traditional clothing for his priceless contributions to the cultural researches and the strong partnership between WSU and HU.