Stewardship as an educational process of social learning and change: two case studies conducted in the Western Cape
- Authors: Walker, Clara Isabella
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa -- Western Cape Conservation of natural resources -- South Africa -- Western Cape Natural resources -- South Africa -- Western Cape -- Management Social learning -- South Africa -- Western Cape Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Western Cape Cape Nature Stewardship Programme (South Africa) Biodiversity Stewardship Programme (South Africa)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1772 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003657
- Description: Stewardship in South Africa, as it is being implemented within the framework of the Biodiversity Stewardship Programme (BSP), is an attempt by conservation agencies to engage landowners in the voluntary securing of parcels of biodiverse land, through signing a contract for a certain time period, not to develop the landscape in ways that will impact negatively on the biodiversity of the area in question. The focus of this study is the relationship between biodiversity stewardship and social learning, as I hope to ascertain how stewardship practices are helping to resolve the current problems of biodiversity loss in the Western Cape. The overall aim of this research is to gain an understanding of how, in its capacity as a conservation education process, the Cape Nature Stewardship Programme can foster social learning amongst the landowners involved in its implementation, by leading them to a better understanding of their environmental responsibilities. Data was generated through the use of interviews and informal discussions with participants together with document analysis, such as brochures, pamphlets and presentations. My approach to the analysis of my data was two-phased. In the first phase, I analysed the data generated from the interview process and from reviewing the documents the stewardship officials supplied me with. The second phase involved looking into the results of the two case studies, and formulating analytical statements which were then used to review the case evidence within a social learning perspective, derived from Wals (2007). In constructing an analytical framework for the interpretation of my data, I drew heavily on Wals' (2007) notion of social learning occurring in sequential activities. I used this insight as a lens through which to trace the educational effects of the implementation of the CNSP in the two case study areas.The research highlighted evidence that Stewardship initiatives should be based on the foundation of social learning and invest time and effort in building an environmental knowledge capital amongst the landowners involved. By equipping them with these necessary conservation skills, one creates a 'community of practice' where those individuals adopt a sustainability habitus contributing towards a change and environmental understanding and practises in field.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
The use of learning support materials in the rural schools of Maputaland, Kwa-Zulu Natal
- Authors: Van der Merwe, Michelle
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa -- Maputaland African Coelacanth Ecosystem Programme Coelacanthiformes -- South Africa -- Maputaland Teaching -- Aids and devices -- South Africa -- Maputaland Environmental education -- Curricula -- South Africa -- Maputaland
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1815 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003701
- Description: The African Coelacanth Ecosystem Programme (ACEP) was established in 2002 after the discovery of a colony of coelacanths off the Maputaland coast at Sodwana Bay, KwaZulu Natal. The environmental education and awareness sub-programme developed learning support materials (LSM's) for use in schools and the materials were disseminated annually through teacher education workshops. This study aimed to uncover the use of these LSM's in the rural schools of Maputaland. The active learning framework was used to analyse the materials. Collectively, the ACEP materials cover a range of active learning aspects; however alignment with the curriculum has resulted in an increased focus on experiments, accompanied by a loss of environmental content and a narrowing scope for active environmental learning. Workshop questionnaires and four school case studies revealed the patterns of practice of use of materials in schools. The stated use of materials by teachers is not fully realized in the actual classroom practice which centres on learning content and concept definitions. There is no culture of use of materials in the schools following the annual introduction of ACEP materials. It was also found that the marine and coastal knowledge holding power is outside the realm of the teachers' practice and control. The findings of this study come at a time when there is uncertainty over the future of South African education and the curriculum. This research may inform the environmental education and coastal and marine education field as to their role in education and more specifically the development of learning support materials.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
An investigation into the development of environmental education as a field of practice in South African National Parks
- Authors: Taljaard, Sandra
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa National parks and reserves -- South Africa Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1603 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003485
- Description: This study looks at aspects of the development of environmental education in South African National Parks (SANParks), in relation to the emergence of national and organisational policy frameworks. In order to put current environmental education practices into context, the study firstly looks at the historical development line of environmental education in SANParks, as well as in the broader national context. This provides a framework within which the processes of change and development can be traced in terms of social, political and economic influences on an international and national front. The study finds that the promulgation of legislation, including the Constitution, National Acts and various other policies, reflected the trends of thinking and set the pace in a democratic South Africa, which led to the emergence of more explicit processes and refined policies. Popkewitz’s finding, that education emerged in modernity, is used in the study to illustrate this tendency. It finds that these changes in South Africa resulted in the establishment of more structured environmental education processes within SANParks, and led to the expansion, diversification and strengthening of environmental education as a field of practice over time. The study traces significant processes of recontextualisation of international and national environmental education related policies according to the framework established by Bernstein (1980). These processes of recontextualisation were followed in the formulation processes of SANParks policy and strategy documents in the period from 1999 to 2005, and resulted in an official pedagogic discourse for environmental education in SANParks. The study establishes a second level of recontextualisation, that is, the official pedagogic discourse of environmental education in SANParks is recontextualised to a pedagogic discourse of reproduction. The pedagogic discourse of reproduction relates to park practices, where contextualisation within park-based programmes appears to be strong. The park-based programmes resemble a ‘curriculum in practice’, which brings us to Cornbleth’s critical curriculum approach. The study utilises this approach to explore and explain the meaning of the critical perspective taken on curriculum construction and change efforts at park implementation level (Cornbleth, 1990). The study finds that the contextualisation of park programmes and practices lead to variety in park programmes, which adds richness to environmental education programmes and activities, and further highlights the fact that environmental education practices are prolific in national parks. The study also finds that historical and contextual processes associated with specific parks strongly characterise environmental education programmes and practices in those parks, and that partnership programmes, such as the Kids in Parks programme, contribute towards, and enhance the growth of environmental education as a specialised field of practice in SANParks. The study comments on the need for environmental education practices in SANParks to be reviewed and expanded in line with the contemporary approach towards the environment as a social construct of interacting components. These components include the biophysical, social, economic and political dimensions. The study also highlights the need for the recognition and acknowledgement of the long, historical development line of environmental education in SANParks in order to build on established structures in a holistic way. The study further determines a need for strong leadership to successfully expand this specialised field of practice and encourages a participatory approach in the review and further development of this field of practice in SANParks. The study ultimately finds that environmental education in SANParks has a long and rich development profile, which has placed it in a strong position for further development. However, it concludes that there is a great need for a rejuvenated approach, which requires expert knowledge, professionalism and broad based networking approach to enable meaningful expansion within this specialised field of practice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
The potential of a stratified ontology for developing materials in community-based coastal marine environmental education processes
- Authors: Davies, Siân May
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Ontology Critical realism Environmental education -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Community-based conservation -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Marine resources development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Marine ecology -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Teaching -- Aids and devices -- South Africa Poor -- Education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1708 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003591
- Description: This study set out to explore the possibilities that the Critical Realist concept of a stratified ontology might have for environmental learning and materials development processes. This involved processes of ongoing contextual profiling; the use of picture-based resources and storytelling to support the engagement with the marine harvesting contexts of the villages of Hamburg and Ngqinisa, in the former Ciskei. At the heart of the study was the process of uncovering the empirical, the actual and the real in the context of a community of coastal marine harvesters whose lives and livelihoods are affected by poverty and a history of inequality, and more recently by issues such as HIV/AIDS. Their stories of existing practice changed as we engaged with picture-based narratives, gaining depth and focus in relation to sustainability issues. The learning processes associated with and emerging out of the research processes were enhanced through abductive use of metaphors and graphic illustrations, and through intra- and inter community exchanges, again using picture based narratives. As the study unfolded, the development of environmental education materials receded. Focus turned to how conceptual abstraction processes (of abduction (metaphor) and retroduction) and the stratified ontological framework allowed for learning across epistemological divides.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Curriculum recontextualising using gardens for the health promotion in the life orientation learning area of the senior phase
- Authors: Jenkins, Msawenkosi Wiseman
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies School gardens -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Gardening -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Environmental education -- Curricula -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Environmental education -- Curricula -- Case studies Environmental policy -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1487 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003368
- Description: With a view to understanding how curriculum is interpreted at classroom practice level, the study examined three stories of how the environmental discourse of the National Curriculum Statements (R-9) was recontextualised using school gardens in the Life Orientation Learning Area for the Senior Phase. To understand how the curriculum is recontextualised, I used Bernstein's theory of recontexutalisation where he explained how official pedagogic discourse (OPD) (in this case the environmental discourse is first delocated once it is transferred from the field of production (FOP) and relocated in the recontextualising field (where teacher educators and departmental officials mediate the discourse) and in the field of reproduction (FOR) which is the classroom and school. Bernstein explained that as the discourse is delocated and relocated it undergoes transformation. This transformation is influenced by practitioners' prior-knowledge, experience, culture and beliefs and other factors. To understand how transformation of the environmental discourse takes place, Bernstein's conceptual constructs of selective appropriation and ideological transformation were applied to an interpretation of three lesson processes, to explain how the discourse was changed. Each lesson was reviewed in terms of the selective appropriations and ideological transformations which took place. All three of the lessons observed took place in one school, and as such the study is designed as an interpretive case study where I have tried to make meaning from a rich, thick description of a specific case context. The school is located in Bizana, one of the villages in the O.R. Tambo District Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province,, and is currently in the process of implementing South Africa’s new National Curriculum Statement (NCS) like all other schools in South Africa. In conducting the research I observed lessons, interviewed the learners and teachers, and a community member and the manager of the SANBI greening project, and I also analysed documents which included the NCS for Life Orientation, and teachers planning documents and learners work produced in the lessons. I started the study by conducting a document analysis of the NCS, through which I identified dimensions of the Official Pedagogic Discourse. This was used as a framework to review the lessons to understand how the OPD was being recontextualised. The study concludes by discussing the key findings of the study in the form of a set of analytical statements. Some of the findings indicate that teachers have not been given adequate training for understanding and implementing the NCS which affects the recontextualisation process. The study shows that there is a dire need for professional development if the OPD is to be interpreted adequately by teachers so that its implementation at the meso and micro- levels becomes clear and effective.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Education in the wetlands and wetlands in the education: a case of contextualizing primary/basic education in Tanzania
- Authors: Hogan, Alice Rosemary
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Education -- Tanzania Environmental education -- Tanzania Education, Rural -- Tanzania Education -- Curricula -- Tanzania Community and school -- Tanzania
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1504 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003386
- Description: This dissertation describes an action research case study carried out at a sub-village school at Nyamakurukuru, Utete, Rufiji District, Tanzania. The study was a fully independent research activity funded and led by a female Irish environmental and community specialist who has fifteen years experience of working in rural Tanzania, five of which were in Rufiji District. The aim of the action research was to engage a community of villagers, teachers, students and district officers in a participatory process to adapt a module of a school curriculum to the local context, and teach it in order to describe one way in which contextualization, using local and indigenous knowledge and active discovery teaching-learning processes, can be done. The major research question, which I wished to answer for one specific case, was: Does integrating local environmental cultural knowledge into formal schooling contribute to curriculum relevance? If so, in what way? This document describes the background and context of the research, the motivation and the theoretical basis for the work, the methodology and methods, and the action research process itself. The results are interpreted and discussed in the light of current theoretical perspectives on education and environmental education. The main findings within the case are that: Contextualization improved relevance of education and thus its quality by: • breaking through traditional frames/barriers between teachers and students, students and elders and community and teachers, • allowing formal education to take place outside of the school, • necessitating a change in pedagogy1 to more learner-centered, discovery methods, • allowing indigenous knowledge to come into the classroom, • stimulating creativity and increased confidence, and • bringing local socio-political environmental issues into the classroom. This study provides a case example of how education processes, when engaging local cultural knowledge, can improve the relevance, and thus an aspect of the quality of teaching and learning in school-community contexts, while providing a conduit for integrating environmental education into the formal school curriculum. It provides insights into the key issue of relevance which currently faces educators of children in wetlands in Tanzania. Recommendations were made for the case studied and may be useful beyond the boundaries of the case: • Give more explicit government policy and strategic support for community involvement in educational content–epistemologies and pedagogies. • Weaken framing (hierarchical power positions) to encourage greater partnership between school, home and community to improve relevance. • Investigate the provision of education beyond schools. • Provide practical teacher and community training on use of learner-centered, discovery and active pedagogies. • Provide teacher and community education on biodiversity and the environment. • Provide relevant reference texts and research data on the ecology, biodiversity, vegetation, hydrology, agriculture, sociology, history and other relevant subjects. • Officially nurture a culture that learning should be enjoyable. • Allow the curriculum freedom, in these times of increasing risk for rural tropical wetland communities, to make the curriculum fit the local issues rather than vice versa. • Nurture critical analysis of the curriculum in local pedagogic discourse i.e., at the local contextualization level of the home, community and school.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Co-engaged learning : Xhosa women's narratives on traditional foods
- Authors: Jolly, Rachel
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Women, Xhosa -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Nutrition -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Ethnoscience -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Grahamstown AIDS (Disease) -- South Africa -- Grahamstown HIV infections -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1450 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003331
- Description: This interpretive case study examines Grahamstown East Xhosa women's narratives on the nutritional value of traditional foods. It reviews reflexive learning interactions apparent in the co-engaged narratives of food preparation practices. The research design incorporates methods of reflective co-engagement through which a small team of women were approached as 'co-researchers' in order to work together on shared, local knowledge capital and nutrition concerns. It draws on findings generated using a combination of semi-structured interviews, cooking demonstrations, videography, photographs and field observations as methods of data collection. Data were member-checked and reviewed in a rural context before the emerging evidence was analyzed using Bassey's (1999) analytical statements. Contextual factors influencing the study are high poverty, unemployment and HIV/AIDS prevalence where nutrition levels have been found to be low. The women making up the study have spent the majority of their lives in the peri-urban area of Grahamstown and in some cases, are more than one generation removed from rural living and its associated knowledge. The accompanying shift to modernization was found to influence the interplay between their narratives and practice. Indigenous Knowledge is often characterized by being situated in practice with the knowledge-holders often not 'knowing that they know.' This study concludes that it is not possible to assume that knowledge can always be consciously expressed, especially when that knowledge is embedded in practice. Related to this, co-engagement and diversity among the group gave rise to greater disequilibrium as well as making the knowledge more explicit and hence, available for reflection. The study suggests that through the process of co-engagement and deliberation around indigenous ways of knowing, agency and cultural identity appears to be enabled and strengthened.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Exploring opportunities and challenges for achieving the integration of indigenous knowledge systems into environmental education processes: a case study of the Sebakwe Environmental Education programme (SEEP) in Zimbabwe
- Authors: Zazu, Cryton
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Sebekwane Environmental Education programme Ethnoscience -- Study and teaching -- Zimbabwe Environmental education -- Zimbabwe Mainstreaming in education -- Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1540 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003422
- Description: The role and value of indigenous knowledge systems in enhancing and contextualizing education has long been recognized (UNESCO, 1978). Against this background a lot of research focusing on the documentation and study of the world’s indigenous knowledge systems, including those of Southern African countries was done. However, within the Southern African context much of this research did not translate into practical curriculum processes leaving educational processes de-contextualized (O’Donoghue, 2002; Mokuku, 2004; Shava, 2005). The linkages between the school, the home and the wider community remained weak (Taylor & Mulhall, 2001). The net effect of the limited integration of indigenous knowledge systems into mainstream environmental education processes has been that indigenous learners (such as those within the Sebakwe rural community) continued to get exposed to two different world views, the western scientific world view and the everyday life world views. The integration of indigenous knowledge systems into mainstream education such as the Sebakwe Environmental Education programme (SEEP) is one way of contextualizing education and improving its relevance to learners’ socio-cultural backgrounds. This research was conceptualized against such a context and seeks to explore the opportunities and challenges for the integration of indigenous knowledge systems into the Sebakwe Environmental Education programme. The ultimate purpose of this research is to contextualize SEEP both in its epistemology, and pedagogy. The research was designed and conducted within a qualitative interpretive case study methodology. The methodology involved a three-phased data collection method namely document analysis, focus group interviews and an inquiry-based workshop. The data was then analyzed and interpreted in relation to a set of theoretical perspectives. This research concluded that there is a possibility of integrating indigenous knowledge systems into the Sebakwe Environmental Education programme. Based on the findings the research came up with a list of recommendations to guide the process of working with indigenous knowledge within the Sebakwe Environmental Education programme.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Reviewing the use of environmental audits for environmental learning in school contexts: a case study of environmental auditing processes within a professional development course
- Authors: Hoffmann, Patricia Anne
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Environmental auditing -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Case studies Environmental education -- South Africa -- Case studies Sustainable development -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Case studies Professional education -- South Africa -- Case studies Teachers -- Training of -- South Africa -- Case studies Educational change -- South Africa -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1746 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003630
- Description: This case study focuses on the use of environmental audits for learning, by teachers participating in the Schools and Sustainability professional development course in Durban, South Africa. It reviews ways in which audits were choreographed and used for lessons within school contexts. It explores ways in which audits shaped meaning-making interactions and environmental learning processes. This is an interpretive case study, characterized by a moderate realist perspective. Data were generated through interviews with teachers, field observations, photographs, document analysis, and group interviews with learners. Data were analyzed using the general comparative method. The research takes place in the context of educational transformation in South Africa. Some of the challenges accompanying the shift to Outcomes Based Education seem to be associated with naïve interpretations of constructivism and a view of reality as socially constructed and relative. This seems to have influenced ways in which audits are being undertaken in school contexts. This study argues that a realist orientation to auditing may be a more useful process for engaging with the world and enhancing the way learners perceive and respond to environmental risk. Ideas about reality-congruence and the interacting processes of involvement and detachment are of central importance in understanding processes of knowledge construction and meaning making in this study. The study draws on the work of Elias (1987) and Latour (1999) to shed light on the significance of auditing processes in which a close engagement with reality, coupled with a measure of detachment, can lead to the construction of a more reality-congruent account and a more realistic assessment of the environmental issue in focus. Key findings of the study suggest that the effectiveness of environmental auditing as a pedagogical process was influenced by the teachers’ intentions, knowledge and skills, choreography of the audit, nature of the teaching and learning interactions, and ways in which teachers and learners engaged with the findings. The study recommends that auditing activities should be carefully structured and mediated by teachers to be meaningful and to enable learners to identify environmental issues, gather data, engage in critical reflection and deliberate appropriate responses for social and environmental transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007