An investigation of student leadership in an independent school in the Eastern Cape: ʺdo alternative forms of leadership (such as servant leadership) emerge through community building?ʺ
- Authors: Knott-Craig, Ian Duncan
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Kingswood College Private schools -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Servant leadership -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Educational leadership -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Community and school -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Student volunteers in social service -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1643 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003525
- Description: Significant changes have taken place in recent years in leadership theory and practice world wide. Theorizations of effective leadership have evolved from being authoritarian and task-centered to a model in which leaders are encouraged to look beyond their self-interest and prioritize the interests of the group. This study investigates the development of an alternative form of leadership through community building in two male school boarding houses. It attempts to ascertain whether students are able to work collaboratively towards developing an environment conducive to servant leadership. Structured according to the transformative research paradigm, this action research study was conducted in an independent school, Kingswood College, in Grahamstown, South Africa. The College is a traditional independent co-educational school that prides itself on producing leaders. As the school was in the process of reviewing its leadership system, it became an appropriate site to investigate the development of community and to explore possibilities for the emergence of an alternative form of leadership that would reflect the attributes of servant leadership. The participants in the study were volunteers from two boarding houses, who agreed to reflect on their perceptions and experiences of the way in which their houses functioned. My research findings show that through their willingness to engage in moral dialogue, students can transform their boarding houses into closely-knit communities bound together by shared values and beliefs. Closer relationships make for better understanding. As the leaders take on the responsibility of caring for their juniors, a moral obligation begins to manifest itself. Leaders will display the attributes of servant leadership if they are prepared to acknowledge in practice this moral obligation to serve others.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Knott-Craig, Ian Duncan
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Kingswood College Private schools -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Servant leadership -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Educational leadership -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Community and school -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Student volunteers in social service -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1643 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003525
- Description: Significant changes have taken place in recent years in leadership theory and practice world wide. Theorizations of effective leadership have evolved from being authoritarian and task-centered to a model in which leaders are encouraged to look beyond their self-interest and prioritize the interests of the group. This study investigates the development of an alternative form of leadership through community building in two male school boarding houses. It attempts to ascertain whether students are able to work collaboratively towards developing an environment conducive to servant leadership. Structured according to the transformative research paradigm, this action research study was conducted in an independent school, Kingswood College, in Grahamstown, South Africa. The College is a traditional independent co-educational school that prides itself on producing leaders. As the school was in the process of reviewing its leadership system, it became an appropriate site to investigate the development of community and to explore possibilities for the emergence of an alternative form of leadership that would reflect the attributes of servant leadership. The participants in the study were volunteers from two boarding houses, who agreed to reflect on their perceptions and experiences of the way in which their houses functioned. My research findings show that through their willingness to engage in moral dialogue, students can transform their boarding houses into closely-knit communities bound together by shared values and beliefs. Closer relationships make for better understanding. As the leaders take on the responsibility of caring for their juniors, a moral obligation begins to manifest itself. Leaders will display the attributes of servant leadership if they are prepared to acknowledge in practice this moral obligation to serve others.
- Full Text:
Changing words and worlds?: a phenomenological study of the acquisition of an academic literacy
- Authors: Thomson, Carol Irene
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Education -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa College student development programs -- South Africa Literacy -- South Africa Education, Higher -- Philosophy Educational change -- South Africa Phenomenology
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1446 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003327
- Description: This study is contextualised within the field of post-graduate, continuing teacher education, and the vibrant and demanding policy context that has characterised higher education in post-apartheid South Africa. Situated within a module specifically designed to address what is commonly understood to be the academic literacy development needs of students in the Bachelor of Education Honours programme at the former University of Natal, it aims to unveil the lived experiences of students taking this module. The module, Reading and Writing Academic Texts (RWAT), was developed in direct response to academics’ call that something be done about the ‘problem’ of students’ reading and writing proficiency. As a core, compulsory module, RWAT was informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics and drew on Genre Theory for its conceptual and theoretical framework. It foregrounded the genre of the academic argument as the key academic literacy that was taught. The motivation for this study came from my own increasing concern that the theoretical and conceptual framework we had adopted for the module was emerging as an inherently limiting and formulaic model of literacy, and was resulting in students exiting the module with little or no ‘critical’ perspective on any aspect of literacy as social practice. I was also keen, in a climate of increasing de-personalisation and the massification of education, to reinstate the personal. Thus, I chose to focus on individual lives, and through an exploration of a small group of participants’ ‘lived’ experiences of the RWAT module, ascertain what it is like to acquire an academic literacy. The key research question is, therefore: What is it like to acquire an academic literacy? The secondary research question is: How is this experience influenced by the mode of delivery in which it occurs? For its conceptual and theoretical framing, this study draws on social literacy theory and phenomenology, the latter as both a philosophy and a methodology. However, although the study has drawn significantly on the phenomenological tradition for inspiration and direction, it has not done so uncritically. Thus, the study engages with phenomenology-as-philosophy in great depth before turning to phenomenology-as-methodology, in order to arrive at a point where the methods and procedures applied in it, are justified. The main findings of the study suggest that, despite the RWAT module espousing an ideological model (Street, 1984) of literacy in its learning materials and readings, participants came very much closer to experiencing an autonomous model of literacy (Street, 1984). The data shows that the RWAT module was largely inadequate to the task of inducting participants into the ‘situated practices’ and ‘situated meanings’ of the Discourse of Genre Theory and/or the academy, hence the many ‘lived’ difficulties participants experienced. The data also highlights the ease with which an autonomous model of literacy can come to govern practice and student experience even when curriculum intention is underpinned by an ideological position on literacy as social practice. Finally, the study suggests that the research community in South Africa, characterised as it is by such diversity, would be enriched by more studies derived from phenomenology, and a continuing engagement with phenomenology-as-a-movement in order to both challenge and expand its existing framework.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Thomson, Carol Irene
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Education -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa College student development programs -- South Africa Literacy -- South Africa Education, Higher -- Philosophy Educational change -- South Africa Phenomenology
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1446 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003327
- Description: This study is contextualised within the field of post-graduate, continuing teacher education, and the vibrant and demanding policy context that has characterised higher education in post-apartheid South Africa. Situated within a module specifically designed to address what is commonly understood to be the academic literacy development needs of students in the Bachelor of Education Honours programme at the former University of Natal, it aims to unveil the lived experiences of students taking this module. The module, Reading and Writing Academic Texts (RWAT), was developed in direct response to academics’ call that something be done about the ‘problem’ of students’ reading and writing proficiency. As a core, compulsory module, RWAT was informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics and drew on Genre Theory for its conceptual and theoretical framework. It foregrounded the genre of the academic argument as the key academic literacy that was taught. The motivation for this study came from my own increasing concern that the theoretical and conceptual framework we had adopted for the module was emerging as an inherently limiting and formulaic model of literacy, and was resulting in students exiting the module with little or no ‘critical’ perspective on any aspect of literacy as social practice. I was also keen, in a climate of increasing de-personalisation and the massification of education, to reinstate the personal. Thus, I chose to focus on individual lives, and through an exploration of a small group of participants’ ‘lived’ experiences of the RWAT module, ascertain what it is like to acquire an academic literacy. The key research question is, therefore: What is it like to acquire an academic literacy? The secondary research question is: How is this experience influenced by the mode of delivery in which it occurs? For its conceptual and theoretical framing, this study draws on social literacy theory and phenomenology, the latter as both a philosophy and a methodology. However, although the study has drawn significantly on the phenomenological tradition for inspiration and direction, it has not done so uncritically. Thus, the study engages with phenomenology-as-philosophy in great depth before turning to phenomenology-as-methodology, in order to arrive at a point where the methods and procedures applied in it, are justified. The main findings of the study suggest that, despite the RWAT module espousing an ideological model (Street, 1984) of literacy in its learning materials and readings, participants came very much closer to experiencing an autonomous model of literacy (Street, 1984). The data shows that the RWAT module was largely inadequate to the task of inducting participants into the ‘situated practices’ and ‘situated meanings’ of the Discourse of Genre Theory and/or the academy, hence the many ‘lived’ difficulties participants experienced. The data also highlights the ease with which an autonomous model of literacy can come to govern practice and student experience even when curriculum intention is underpinned by an ideological position on literacy as social practice. Finally, the study suggests that the research community in South Africa, characterised as it is by such diversity, would be enriched by more studies derived from phenomenology, and a continuing engagement with phenomenology-as-a-movement in order to both challenge and expand its existing framework.
- Full Text:
Cluster centre principals' perceptions of the implementation of the school cluster system in Namibia
- Authors: Aipinge, Lydia P
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: School management and organization -- Namibia Education -- Namibia School principals -- Namibia Educational leadership -- Namibia Educational change -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1449 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003330
- Description: The School Clustering System (SCS) was introduced five years after Namibia’s independence in 1990. The rationale for its implementation was to improve the quality of education in Namibian schools by enabling the sharing of resources, experience and expertise among clusters and facilitating school administration by pooling resources from several schools to be shared equally. It was piloted in Rundu and then gradually expanded to the whole country. The cluster system groups 5-7 schools that are eographically close and accessible to each other in one cluster under the leadership of one of the principals known as a Cluster Centre Principal (CCP). The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of CCPs of the implementation of the SCS in two clusters of a particular circuit in the Omusati region. It is a case study involving two CCPs, one serving Inspector of Education (IE), a former Inspector of Education, several teachers, principals and parents. Data were collected through interviews, document analysis, and focus group discussions. The study found that the practice of cluster leaders is informed by contemporary leadership and management thinking. The participatory approach employed in clusterbased committees enables site-based management and collaboration. This has led to organisational learning. It was also found that a number of challenges are hampering the implementation of the SCS. These include lack of system support and inadequate resources. However, the human potential coupled with a high degree of readiness exhibited by cluster members are seen as potential drivers of further development of the system. The study recommends the adoption of a national policy that formalises the SCS as well as the strengthening of system support to build cluster capacity. It also makes suggestions for further research in organisational culture and behaviour with the aim of developing leadership and management practices in the SCS.
- Full Text:
Cluster centre principals' perceptions of the implementation of the school cluster system in Namibia
- Authors: Aipinge, Lydia P
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: School management and organization -- Namibia Education -- Namibia School principals -- Namibia Educational leadership -- Namibia Educational change -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1449 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003330
- Description: The School Clustering System (SCS) was introduced five years after Namibia’s independence in 1990. The rationale for its implementation was to improve the quality of education in Namibian schools by enabling the sharing of resources, experience and expertise among clusters and facilitating school administration by pooling resources from several schools to be shared equally. It was piloted in Rundu and then gradually expanded to the whole country. The cluster system groups 5-7 schools that are eographically close and accessible to each other in one cluster under the leadership of one of the principals known as a Cluster Centre Principal (CCP). The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of CCPs of the implementation of the SCS in two clusters of a particular circuit in the Omusati region. It is a case study involving two CCPs, one serving Inspector of Education (IE), a former Inspector of Education, several teachers, principals and parents. Data were collected through interviews, document analysis, and focus group discussions. The study found that the practice of cluster leaders is informed by contemporary leadership and management thinking. The participatory approach employed in clusterbased committees enables site-based management and collaboration. This has led to organisational learning. It was also found that a number of challenges are hampering the implementation of the SCS. These include lack of system support and inadequate resources. However, the human potential coupled with a high degree of readiness exhibited by cluster members are seen as potential drivers of further development of the system. The study recommends the adoption of a national policy that formalises the SCS as well as the strengthening of system support to build cluster capacity. It also makes suggestions for further research in organisational culture and behaviour with the aim of developing leadership and management practices in the SCS.
- Full Text:
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