Change in Roviana Lagoon Coral Reef ethnobiology:
- Aswani, Shankar, Albert, Simon
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Albert, Simon
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145460 , vital:38440 , ISBN 9783319237633 , DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-23763-3_10
- Description: Coral reefs are iconic for their beauty and biodiversity, and are of great socioeconomic and cultural importance for many coastal communities across the tropics. However, little is known about people’s local classification and their social and ecological relationship with these habitats. This chapter describes Roviana people’s changing ecological and social relationship with their coral reefs, which are increasingly being damaged by humans. First, we combined ecological and social data to describe people’s classification of local coral reefs in tandem with the productive practices conducted in these habitats. Second, we examined local perceptions and recognized effects of environmental and climatic changes on reefs over the last two decades. Finally, we measured changes in fishing activities and in the taxonomic systems (between 1995 and 2011) to evaluate if recent social and economic change has led to the erosion of marine indigenous ecological knowledge and associated practices. Studying people’s changing perceptions of their coral reefs is crucial to understand their ability to identify and adapt to environmental transformations. Simply, the way local people perceive the state of the environment is not only important in terms of changes in local epistemology but also has important implications for how resources are used and managed, and this information can be coupled with scientific one for a broader management strategy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Albert, Simon
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145460 , vital:38440 , ISBN 9783319237633 , DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-23763-3_10
- Description: Coral reefs are iconic for their beauty and biodiversity, and are of great socioeconomic and cultural importance for many coastal communities across the tropics. However, little is known about people’s local classification and their social and ecological relationship with these habitats. This chapter describes Roviana people’s changing ecological and social relationship with their coral reefs, which are increasingly being damaged by humans. First, we combined ecological and social data to describe people’s classification of local coral reefs in tandem with the productive practices conducted in these habitats. Second, we examined local perceptions and recognized effects of environmental and climatic changes on reefs over the last two decades. Finally, we measured changes in fishing activities and in the taxonomic systems (between 1995 and 2011) to evaluate if recent social and economic change has led to the erosion of marine indigenous ecological knowledge and associated practices. Studying people’s changing perceptions of their coral reefs is crucial to understand their ability to identify and adapt to environmental transformations. Simply, the way local people perceive the state of the environment is not only important in terms of changes in local epistemology but also has important implications for how resources are used and managed, and this information can be coupled with scientific one for a broader management strategy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Hsp70/Hsp90 organising protein (hop): beyond interactions with chaperones and prion proteins
- Baindur-Hudson, Swati, Edkins, Adrienne L, Blatch, Gregory L
- Authors: Baindur-Hudson, Swati , Edkins, Adrienne L , Blatch, Gregory L
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/164852 , vital:41178 , ISBN 978-3-319-11730-0 , DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-11731-7_3
- Description: The Hsp70/Hsp90 organising protein (Hop), also known as stress-inducible protein 1 (STI1), has received considerable attention for diverse cellular functions in both healthy and diseased states. There is extensive evidence that intracellular Hop is a co-chaperone of the major chaperones Hsp70 and Hsp90, playing an important role in the productive folding of Hsp90 client proteins. Consequently, Hop is implicated in a number of key signalling pathways, including aberrant pathways leading to cancer. However, Hop is also secreted and it is now well established that Hop also serves as a receptor for the prion protein, PrPC.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Baindur-Hudson, Swati , Edkins, Adrienne L , Blatch, Gregory L
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/164852 , vital:41178 , ISBN 978-3-319-11730-0 , DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-11731-7_3
- Description: The Hsp70/Hsp90 organising protein (Hop), also known as stress-inducible protein 1 (STI1), has received considerable attention for diverse cellular functions in both healthy and diseased states. There is extensive evidence that intracellular Hop is a co-chaperone of the major chaperones Hsp70 and Hsp90, playing an important role in the productive folding of Hsp90 client proteins. Consequently, Hop is implicated in a number of key signalling pathways, including aberrant pathways leading to cancer. However, Hop is also secreted and it is now well established that Hop also serves as a receptor for the prion protein, PrPC.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Africa in global International relations: emerging approaches to theory and practice: an introduction
- Bischoff, Paul, 1954-, Aning, Kwesi, Acharya, Amitav
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954- , Aning, Kwesi , Acharya, Amitav
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161662 , vital:40651 , ISBN 9781317437536
- Description: This book investigates why Africa has been marginalised in IR discipline and theory and how this issue can be addressed in the context of the emerging Global IR paradigm. To have relevance for Africa, a new IR theory needs to be more inclusive, intellectually negotiated and holistically steeped in the African context. In this innovative volume, each author takes a critical look at existing IR paradigms and offers a unique perspective based on the African experience. Following on from Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan’s work, Non-Western International Relations Theory, it develops and advances non-Western IR theory and the idea of Global IR.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954- , Aning, Kwesi , Acharya, Amitav
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161662 , vital:40651 , ISBN 9781317437536
- Description: This book investigates why Africa has been marginalised in IR discipline and theory and how this issue can be addressed in the context of the emerging Global IR paradigm. To have relevance for Africa, a new IR theory needs to be more inclusive, intellectually negotiated and holistically steeped in the African context. In this innovative volume, each author takes a critical look at existing IR paradigms and offers a unique perspective based on the African experience. Following on from Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan’s work, Non-Western International Relations Theory, it develops and advances non-Western IR theory and the idea of Global IR.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
"I want to kill myself!": identity documents and mental health in the South African Daily Sun tabloid
- Authors: Boshoff, Priscilla A
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143549 , vital:38256 , ISBN , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: An Identity Document (ID) is needed by South Africans to study, apply for a pension or get married. However, Home Affairs, the state department responsible for issuing them, is poorly managed. The popular Daily Sun tabloid newspaper mediates for its five million working class readers the frustration caused by this incompetency in its “Horror Affairs” column. Readers tell their stories about (not) getting their IDs, stories often of suicide, depression and “giving up” on life. Using a Lacanian frame, and through a close reading of “Horror Affairs” texts, I argue that this tabloid plays a therapeutic role for its socially marginalised readers by mediating the “invisibility” engendered by the modernising state and its administrative technologies. Given the concern about high rates of mental health illness in South Africa, the research also demonstrates how popular culture forms can alert health care practitioners to issues which may otherwise go unnoticed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Boshoff, Priscilla A
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143549 , vital:38256 , ISBN , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: An Identity Document (ID) is needed by South Africans to study, apply for a pension or get married. However, Home Affairs, the state department responsible for issuing them, is poorly managed. The popular Daily Sun tabloid newspaper mediates for its five million working class readers the frustration caused by this incompetency in its “Horror Affairs” column. Readers tell their stories about (not) getting their IDs, stories often of suicide, depression and “giving up” on life. Using a Lacanian frame, and through a close reading of “Horror Affairs” texts, I argue that this tabloid plays a therapeutic role for its socially marginalised readers by mediating the “invisibility” engendered by the modernising state and its administrative technologies. Given the concern about high rates of mental health illness in South Africa, the research also demonstrates how popular culture forms can alert health care practitioners to issues which may otherwise go unnoticed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Determinants of student satisfaction with campus residence life at a South African university
- Botha, Ferdi, Snowball, Jeanette D, De Klerk, Vivian A, Radloff, Sarah E
- Authors: Botha, Ferdi , Snowball, Jeanette D , De Klerk, Vivian A , Radloff, Sarah E
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69277 , vital:29475 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15904-1_2
- Description: Factors outside the classroom can contribute to academic success as well as the achievement of important outcomes such as the appreciation of human diversity. Striving towards equality of residence life satisfaction is thus important for academic outcomes and for the development of well-functioning citizens. This study is based on the 2011 Quality of Residence Life (QoRL) Survey, conducted at a South African university, comprising roughly 2,000 respondents. The study investigates the association between satisfaction with QoRL and (i) residence milieu and characteristics, (ii) direct and indirect discrimination, (iii) perceptions of drug and alcohol issues in residence, (iv) safety, and (v) individual student characteristics. One main finding is that there are no significant differences in satisfaction with QoRL across racial and gender groups; suggesting significant progress in university transformation and equity goals. The general atmosphere and characteristics of residences are also important predictors of QoRL satisfaction.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Botha, Ferdi , Snowball, Jeanette D , De Klerk, Vivian A , Radloff, Sarah E
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69277 , vital:29475 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15904-1_2
- Description: Factors outside the classroom can contribute to academic success as well as the achievement of important outcomes such as the appreciation of human diversity. Striving towards equality of residence life satisfaction is thus important for academic outcomes and for the development of well-functioning citizens. This study is based on the 2011 Quality of Residence Life (QoRL) Survey, conducted at a South African university, comprising roughly 2,000 respondents. The study investigates the association between satisfaction with QoRL and (i) residence milieu and characteristics, (ii) direct and indirect discrimination, (iii) perceptions of drug and alcohol issues in residence, (iv) safety, and (v) individual student characteristics. One main finding is that there are no significant differences in satisfaction with QoRL across racial and gender groups; suggesting significant progress in university transformation and equity goals. The general atmosphere and characteristics of residences are also important predictors of QoRL satisfaction.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
An exploration of the principle of Dance Movement Therapy in water resource management research practice:
- Authors: Copteros, Athina
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142016 , vital:38024 , ISBN PECS Conference: Social-ecological dynamics in the Anthropocene, Spier Estate, Cape Town, 2-5 November , http://www.pecs-science.org/research/news/news/2015pecsconferencesocialecologicaldynamicsintheanthropocene.5.40768cbb14b32a0480b694.html
- Description: An exploration of the principle of Dance Movement Therapy in water resource management research practice
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Copteros, Athina
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142016 , vital:38024 , ISBN PECS Conference: Social-ecological dynamics in the Anthropocene, Spier Estate, Cape Town, 2-5 November , http://www.pecs-science.org/research/news/news/2015pecsconferencesocialecologicaldynamicsintheanthropocene.5.40768cbb14b32a0480b694.html
- Description: An exploration of the principle of Dance Movement Therapy in water resource management research practice
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Making room for the unexpected: the university and the ethical imperative of unconditional hospitality
- Authors: Dass, Minesh
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142108 , vital:38050 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Dass, Minesh
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142108 , vital:38050 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
What about the queers?: the institutional culture of heteronormativity and its implications for queer staff and students
- Authors: Donaldson, Natalie
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142051 , vital:38045 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Donaldson, Natalie
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142051 , vital:38045 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
CHIP: a co-chaperone for degradation by the proteasome
- Authors: Edkins, Adrienne L
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/164863 , vital:41179 , ISBN 978-3-319-11730-0 , DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-11731-7_11
- Description: Protein homeostasis relies on a balance between protein folding and protein degradation. Molecular chaperones like Hsp70 and Hsp90 fulfil well-defined roles in protein folding and conformational stability via ATP dependent reaction cycles. These folding cycles are controlled by associations with a cohort of non-client protein co-chaperones, such as Hop, p23 and Aha1. Pro-folding co-chaperones facilitate the transit of the client protein through the chaperone mediated folding process. However, chaperones are also involved in ubiquitin-mediated proteasomal degradation of client proteins. Similar to folding complexes, the ability of chaperones to mediate protein degradation is regulated by co-chaperones, such as the C terminal Hsp70 binding protein (CHIP).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Edkins, Adrienne L
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/164863 , vital:41179 , ISBN 978-3-319-11730-0 , DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-11731-7_11
- Description: Protein homeostasis relies on a balance between protein folding and protein degradation. Molecular chaperones like Hsp70 and Hsp90 fulfil well-defined roles in protein folding and conformational stability via ATP dependent reaction cycles. These folding cycles are controlled by associations with a cohort of non-client protein co-chaperones, such as Hop, p23 and Aha1. Pro-folding co-chaperones facilitate the transit of the client protein through the chaperone mediated folding process. However, chaperones are also involved in ubiquitin-mediated proteasomal degradation of client proteins. Similar to folding complexes, the ability of chaperones to mediate protein degradation is regulated by co-chaperones, such as the C terminal Hsp70 binding protein (CHIP).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Antjie Krog and the post-apartheid public sphere: Speaking poetry to power
- Authors: Garman, Anthea
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/159913 , vital:40355 , ISBN 978-1869142933
- Description: Antjie Krog has been known in Afrikaans literary circles and the media for decades because of her poetry and her strong political convictions. Often known simply as 'Antjie,' she is also affectionately called 'our beloved poet' and our 'Joan of Arc' by Afrikaans commentators. It was through her work on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an SABC radio journalist and her subsequent book, Country of My Skull, that Antjie Krog then became known to English-speakers in South Africa and across the world. Her work catapulted her particular brand of poetics and politics, honed over many years of her opposition to apartheid, into the South African public sphere at a time when the country was not only looking for a humane and just resolution after the apartheid era, but was also establishing itself as a new democracy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Garman, Anthea
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/159913 , vital:40355 , ISBN 978-1869142933
- Description: Antjie Krog has been known in Afrikaans literary circles and the media for decades because of her poetry and her strong political convictions. Often known simply as 'Antjie,' she is also affectionately called 'our beloved poet' and our 'Joan of Arc' by Afrikaans commentators. It was through her work on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an SABC radio journalist and her subsequent book, Country of My Skull, that Antjie Krog then became known to English-speakers in South Africa and across the world. Her work catapulted her particular brand of poetics and politics, honed over many years of her opposition to apartheid, into the South African public sphere at a time when the country was not only looking for a humane and just resolution after the apartheid era, but was also establishing itself as a new democracy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Global Handbook of Quality of Life: exploration of well-being of nations and continents
- Glatzer, Wolfgang, Camfield, Laura, Moller, Valerie, Rojas, Mariano
- Authors: Glatzer, Wolfgang , Camfield, Laura , Moller, Valerie , Rojas, Mariano
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67245 , vital:29063 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9178-6
- Description: publisher version , This handbook provides a comprehensive historical account of the field of Quality of Life. It brings together theoretical insights and empirical findings, and presents the main items of global quality of life and wellbeing research. Worldwide in its scope of topics, the handbook examines discussions of demographic and health development, the spread of democracy, global economic accounting, multi-item measurement of perceived satisfaction and expert-assessed quality of life, and the well-being of children, women and poor people. It looks at well-being in specific regions, including North and Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, South America, and Eastern and Western Europe. In addition to contributions by leading and younger authors, the handbook includes contributions from International Organizations about their own work with respect to social reporting.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Glatzer, Wolfgang , Camfield, Laura , Moller, Valerie , Rojas, Mariano
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67245 , vital:29063 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9178-6
- Description: publisher version , This handbook provides a comprehensive historical account of the field of Quality of Life. It brings together theoretical insights and empirical findings, and presents the main items of global quality of life and wellbeing research. Worldwide in its scope of topics, the handbook examines discussions of demographic and health development, the spread of democracy, global economic accounting, multi-item measurement of perceived satisfaction and expert-assessed quality of life, and the well-being of children, women and poor people. It looks at well-being in specific regions, including North and Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, South America, and Eastern and Western Europe. In addition to contributions by leading and younger authors, the handbook includes contributions from International Organizations about their own work with respect to social reporting.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
Employing safe bets: reflections on attracting, developing and retaining the next generation of academics
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142145 , vital:38053 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142145 , vital:38053 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Politics and discourse in South Africa:
- Authors: Hunt, Sally
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139249 , vital:37719 , ISBN 9789027206565 , https://benjamins.com/catalog/dapsac.65
- Description: The discourses of the post-apartheid South Africa embody symbols of change and promises of new lessons in history. This is the first volume that brings together analyses of a variety of discourses produced in South Africa through which we follow the evolution of transitional processes in the country’s political institutions and in the opinions of its populace. The book offers to the reader a visit to the Parliament, a peek into the internet forums, analyses of the country's official papers and speeches, and the media accounts. Through all these discourses we see the burning questions – "Who Are We Now?" and "Who Do We Want To Be?" – being repetitively examined and identities cross-formed while the country deals with new, post-apartheid challenges, as well as successes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Hunt, Sally
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139249 , vital:37719 , ISBN 9789027206565 , https://benjamins.com/catalog/dapsac.65
- Description: The discourses of the post-apartheid South Africa embody symbols of change and promises of new lessons in history. This is the first volume that brings together analyses of a variety of discourses produced in South Africa through which we follow the evolution of transitional processes in the country’s political institutions and in the opinions of its populace. The book offers to the reader a visit to the Parliament, a peek into the internet forums, analyses of the country's official papers and speeches, and the media accounts. Through all these discourses we see the burning questions – "Who Are We Now?" and "Who Do We Want To Be?" – being repetitively examined and identities cross-formed while the country deals with new, post-apartheid challenges, as well as successes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Representations of gender and agency in the Harry Potter series:
- Authors: Hunt, Sally
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139269 , vital:37721 , ISBN 978-1-137-43173-8 , https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137431738_13
- Description: Gender is an all-pervasive and extremely influential construct in the lives of individuals (Taylor, 2003). In children’s literature, we find a reflection of the attitudes towards gender prevalent in a given society at a particular time (Peterson and Lach, 1990). Therefore the study of how gender is represented in children’s literature can make a useful contribution to our understanding of how choices in language use support particular discourses, ‘broad constitutive systems of meaning’ (Sunderland, 2004: 6) or ‘ways of seeing the world’ (op cit: 28). These representations in turn perpetuate prevailing gendered power relations in that society, as research into children’s literature has shown (Thompson and Sealey, 2007). Corpus Linguistics offers a degree of objectivity and efficiency not possible in manual ideological analysis, as well as a set of tools particularly useful for the lexical analysis of considerable quantities of text. In this chapter, I report on my analysis of gendered discourses in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, focussing on patterns around grammatical agency in the books.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Hunt, Sally
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139269 , vital:37721 , ISBN 978-1-137-43173-8 , https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137431738_13
- Description: Gender is an all-pervasive and extremely influential construct in the lives of individuals (Taylor, 2003). In children’s literature, we find a reflection of the attitudes towards gender prevalent in a given society at a particular time (Peterson and Lach, 1990). Therefore the study of how gender is represented in children’s literature can make a useful contribution to our understanding of how choices in language use support particular discourses, ‘broad constitutive systems of meaning’ (Sunderland, 2004: 6) or ‘ways of seeing the world’ (op cit: 28). These representations in turn perpetuate prevailing gendered power relations in that society, as research into children’s literature has shown (Thompson and Sealey, 2007). Corpus Linguistics offers a degree of objectivity and efficiency not possible in manual ideological analysis, as well as a set of tools particularly useful for the lexical analysis of considerable quantities of text. In this chapter, I report on my analysis of gendered discourses in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, focussing on patterns around grammatical agency in the books.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
“Mother of the Nation”: representations of womanhood in South African media
- Authors: Hunt, Sally
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139229 , vital:37717 , ISBN 9789027206565 , https://benjamins.com/catalog/dapsac.65
- Description: The discourses of the post-apartheid South Africa embody symbols of change and promises of new lessons in history. This is the first volume that brings together analyses of a variety of discourses produced in South Africa through which we follow the evolution of transitional processes in the country’s political institutions and in the opinions of its populace. The book offers to the reader a visit to the Parliament, a peek into the internet forums, analyses of the country's official papers and speeches, and the media accounts. Through all these discourses we see the burning questions – "Who Are We Now?" and "Who Do We Want To Be?" – being repetitively examined and identities cross-formed while the country deals with new, post-apartheid challenges, as well as successes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Hunt, Sally
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139229 , vital:37717 , ISBN 9789027206565 , https://benjamins.com/catalog/dapsac.65
- Description: The discourses of the post-apartheid South Africa embody symbols of change and promises of new lessons in history. This is the first volume that brings together analyses of a variety of discourses produced in South Africa through which we follow the evolution of transitional processes in the country’s political institutions and in the opinions of its populace. The book offers to the reader a visit to the Parliament, a peek into the internet forums, analyses of the country's official papers and speeches, and the media accounts. Through all these discourses we see the burning questions – "Who Are We Now?" and "Who Do We Want To Be?" – being repetitively examined and identities cross-formed while the country deals with new, post-apartheid challenges, as well as successes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Study South Africa
- International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA), Jooste, Nico
- Authors: International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA) , Jooste, Nico
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education and globalization -- South Africa Student mobility -- Africa International education -- South Africa Education, Higher -- International cooperation , Universities and colleges -- South Africa , Technical Institutes -- South Africa , Vocational guidance -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64911 , vital:28636 , ISBN 9780620672306
- Description: [Editor's Letter]: This, the 15th edition of Study South Africa, continues to provide a platform for South African universities to profile themselves. It also provides highlights from the South African Higher Education system for the past year. This edition will focus on research and the internationalisation of research in the South African context. Study South Africa has established itself as the international mouthpiece for South African universities and without missing a beat has been produced by volunteers who, with enthusiasm, have dedicated their time and intellect to promote Higher Education Internationalisation as well as to promote South Africa as a knowledge destination for students, academics and professional staff. It is a special privilege and honour to write the introductory message for this 15th edition of Study South Africa as President of IEASA and Editor of the publication. In an era where global re-organisation is dominating the Higher Education scene and new alliances are formed to emulate the new geopolitical landscape, we need to take note of all the challenges facing Higher Education Internationalisation. A number of trends can be identified as major influences on Higher Education on a global scale. I will focus on some of those trends affecting Higher Education in emerging economies and the developing world. The first of these trends is the focus on regional and south-south cooperation. South African universities indicated their intent to further develop closer relationships with universities in Africa through their participation in the re-thinking of Africa’s future during the African Higher Education Summit on the Revitalisation of Higher Education for Africa’s future, in Dakar, Senegal during March 2015. The vision agreed upon during the summit is to ‘develop a high quality, massive, vibrant, diverse, differentiated, innovative, autonomous and socially responsible Higher Education sector. This sector will be a driving force to achieving the vision outlined in the Agenda 2063 by the African Union with a commitment to a shared strategic framework for the inclusive growth, sustainable development and global strategy to optimise the use of Africa’s resources for the benefit of all Africans’. The role of universities would be to develop closer cooperation as well as to advance research with a focus on innovation and sustainable economic growth that will integrate African economies as equal partners in the world economy. It is clear from the vision that although the emphasis should be on inter-African collaboration, collaboration with institutions outside the African continent should not be excluded to achieve the knowledge creation needed to achieve Agenda 2063. Another Higher Education Internationalisation trend in South Africa is the development of closer cooperation within the BRICS countries. The agreements reached and strategies agreed to during the BRICS Summit in Ufa, and included in the Ufa Declaration of 17 June 2015, open doors to future collaborations between BRICS universities. It is envisaged that in the next year the constituent meeting of the BRICS University Network and the establishment of the BRICS Universities League will provide the necessary framework for future collaboration amongst universities from the BRICS member countries. It is imperative that organisations like IEASA and the Brazilian FAUBAI play a key role in the establishment and function of the above mentioned networks. We can provide the necessary support and leadership to other member countries where Higher Education Internationalisation is still at the early stages of conceptualisation and organisation. It will be important to make effective use of the occasion of the Global Conference on Higher Education Internationalisation, scheduled to take place in South Africa in August 2016, to debate and set the future agenda for the BRICS University Network in relation to the rest of the world. It is also vital that the BRICS universities as well as the universities in Africa integrate fully with the rest of the world instead of developing a separate grouping. , 15th Edition
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA) , Jooste, Nico
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education and globalization -- South Africa Student mobility -- Africa International education -- South Africa Education, Higher -- International cooperation , Universities and colleges -- South Africa , Technical Institutes -- South Africa , Vocational guidance -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64911 , vital:28636 , ISBN 9780620672306
- Description: [Editor's Letter]: This, the 15th edition of Study South Africa, continues to provide a platform for South African universities to profile themselves. It also provides highlights from the South African Higher Education system for the past year. This edition will focus on research and the internationalisation of research in the South African context. Study South Africa has established itself as the international mouthpiece for South African universities and without missing a beat has been produced by volunteers who, with enthusiasm, have dedicated their time and intellect to promote Higher Education Internationalisation as well as to promote South Africa as a knowledge destination for students, academics and professional staff. It is a special privilege and honour to write the introductory message for this 15th edition of Study South Africa as President of IEASA and Editor of the publication. In an era where global re-organisation is dominating the Higher Education scene and new alliances are formed to emulate the new geopolitical landscape, we need to take note of all the challenges facing Higher Education Internationalisation. A number of trends can be identified as major influences on Higher Education on a global scale. I will focus on some of those trends affecting Higher Education in emerging economies and the developing world. The first of these trends is the focus on regional and south-south cooperation. South African universities indicated their intent to further develop closer relationships with universities in Africa through their participation in the re-thinking of Africa’s future during the African Higher Education Summit on the Revitalisation of Higher Education for Africa’s future, in Dakar, Senegal during March 2015. The vision agreed upon during the summit is to ‘develop a high quality, massive, vibrant, diverse, differentiated, innovative, autonomous and socially responsible Higher Education sector. This sector will be a driving force to achieving the vision outlined in the Agenda 2063 by the African Union with a commitment to a shared strategic framework for the inclusive growth, sustainable development and global strategy to optimise the use of Africa’s resources for the benefit of all Africans’. The role of universities would be to develop closer cooperation as well as to advance research with a focus on innovation and sustainable economic growth that will integrate African economies as equal partners in the world economy. It is clear from the vision that although the emphasis should be on inter-African collaboration, collaboration with institutions outside the African continent should not be excluded to achieve the knowledge creation needed to achieve Agenda 2063. Another Higher Education Internationalisation trend in South Africa is the development of closer cooperation within the BRICS countries. The agreements reached and strategies agreed to during the BRICS Summit in Ufa, and included in the Ufa Declaration of 17 June 2015, open doors to future collaborations between BRICS universities. It is envisaged that in the next year the constituent meeting of the BRICS University Network and the establishment of the BRICS Universities League will provide the necessary framework for future collaboration amongst universities from the BRICS member countries. It is imperative that organisations like IEASA and the Brazilian FAUBAI play a key role in the establishment and function of the above mentioned networks. We can provide the necessary support and leadership to other member countries where Higher Education Internationalisation is still at the early stages of conceptualisation and organisation. It will be important to make effective use of the occasion of the Global Conference on Higher Education Internationalisation, scheduled to take place in South Africa in August 2016, to debate and set the future agenda for the BRICS University Network in relation to the rest of the world. It is also vital that the BRICS universities as well as the universities in Africa integrate fully with the rest of the world instead of developing a separate grouping. , 15th Edition
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Reinventing the oral word and returning it to the community via technauriture
- Kaschula, Russell H, Dlutu, Bongiwe
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H , Dlutu, Bongiwe
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67052 , vital:29024 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=6IpwCgAAQBAJ
- Description: publisher version , From Introduction: The aim of this article is to situate the importance of orality in rural communities within the paradigm of Technauriture, which is defined below. The chapter will also explore/describe the process of orality supported through community meetings, oral histories, and story-telling, and how it interacts with the recording process facilitated through modern technology, as well as the return of the oral material via technology. These objectives will be pursued as part of empirical data collected at Tshani, an area falling within the in Mankosi tribal authority in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Mankosi’s twelve villages are inhabited by amaXhosa people and is situated in the Ngqeleni district in the former Transkei region. Mankosi is about 76 kilometres away from Mthatha, the major city in that area. These villages are under the Nyandeni Local Municipality and are regarded as very disadvantaged. There is poor sanitation, gravel roads, and few local people have access to electricity. Most of the villagers depend on government support grants. These include Child Support Grants, Old Age Grants, Disability Grants, and Foster-Care Grants. Furthermore, most of the community is involved in small-scale agriculture for survival. People often move, temporarily, from their village to towns in order to gain employment, including domestic work and working on the mines in the mineral rich Gauteng Province. They send cash remittances home to their families. The primary technological devices that people in the village are familiar with would be radio and the cell phone. Even television sets are relatively uncommon.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H , Dlutu, Bongiwe
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67052 , vital:29024 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=6IpwCgAAQBAJ
- Description: publisher version , From Introduction: The aim of this article is to situate the importance of orality in rural communities within the paradigm of Technauriture, which is defined below. The chapter will also explore/describe the process of orality supported through community meetings, oral histories, and story-telling, and how it interacts with the recording process facilitated through modern technology, as well as the return of the oral material via technology. These objectives will be pursued as part of empirical data collected at Tshani, an area falling within the in Mankosi tribal authority in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Mankosi’s twelve villages are inhabited by amaXhosa people and is situated in the Ngqeleni district in the former Transkei region. Mankosi is about 76 kilometres away from Mthatha, the major city in that area. These villages are under the Nyandeni Local Municipality and are regarded as very disadvantaged. There is poor sanitation, gravel roads, and few local people have access to electricity. Most of the villagers depend on government support grants. These include Child Support Grants, Old Age Grants, Disability Grants, and Foster-Care Grants. Furthermore, most of the community is involved in small-scale agriculture for survival. People often move, temporarily, from their village to towns in order to gain employment, including domestic work and working on the mines in the mineral rich Gauteng Province. They send cash remittances home to their families. The primary technological devices that people in the village are familiar with would be radio and the cell phone. Even television sets are relatively uncommon.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
From linguistic determinism to technological determinism
- Kaschula, Russell H, Mostert, André M
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H , Mostert, André M
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67062 , vital:29027 , https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-5888-2.ch447
- Description: publisher version , From Introduction: This article seeks to analyse the link between linguistic determinism, the notion that language determines our thought and the way we perceive our reality, as espoused by the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and contemporary technological determinism. Arguably this link takes place within a global context where equal access to technology is not yet guaranteed. Ellul (1964) and Lawson’s (2004) observations create an interesting metaphor in terms of the technological beast staring down human society. The overwhelming response if we accept Lawson’s observation is complacency at best or downright naivety at worst regarding the impact of technology on our thinking. Lawson made his observation in the pre-Facebook era and subsequent literature is now much more focused on all aspects of technology within our contemporary milieu. Technology is now totally ubiquitous in the developed world and becoming more so in developing countries, albeit with a much stronger mobile bias for early technology adopters. That technology is rushing ahead of many individuals and institutions is almost an aphorism with many lagging in its wake. This lag as recognised by Brynjolfson and McAfree (2011) has wide social and economic implications for all members of society, in the case of business those that do not keep up go under. A further pertinent question revolves around how individuals who start from low technological literacy levels or do not keep pace with technological developments are impacted. Dlutu (2013) assesses for example the impact of social network sites on the isiXhosa language and culture in both a rural and urban area of South Africa. Furthermore one may then ask how this technological milieu impacts on the general aspects of the day to day lives and thinking of all members of a society. This gives rise to the concept of technological determinism which in its simplest form states ‘that technology has important effects on our lives’ (Adler, 2008, p. 537). This is far too simplistic when the contemporaneous technological developments are assessed. Adler (2008, p. 537) goes further and recognizes ‘that technology itself is socially determined…and social structures co-evolve in a non-deterministic, emergent process…the effects of any given technology depend mainly on how it is implemented which in turn is socially determined’ (Adler, 2008, p. 537). Engaging this socially determined application of technology can be advanced when the relationship with language and language determinism is considered. Moreover, it is the interplay between technology and language that gives rise to the emerging concept of a language singularity which is brought about by a form of technological determinism. This article seeks to explore the possible effects of rapid technological development on human interaction, language and culture in a ‘globalized’ world which has unequal access to literacy and technology. Furthermore, the article explores the link between language, culture, thought and technology and the type of linguistic and technological determinism that we can anticipate.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H , Mostert, André M
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67062 , vital:29027 , https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-5888-2.ch447
- Description: publisher version , From Introduction: This article seeks to analyse the link between linguistic determinism, the notion that language determines our thought and the way we perceive our reality, as espoused by the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and contemporary technological determinism. Arguably this link takes place within a global context where equal access to technology is not yet guaranteed. Ellul (1964) and Lawson’s (2004) observations create an interesting metaphor in terms of the technological beast staring down human society. The overwhelming response if we accept Lawson’s observation is complacency at best or downright naivety at worst regarding the impact of technology on our thinking. Lawson made his observation in the pre-Facebook era and subsequent literature is now much more focused on all aspects of technology within our contemporary milieu. Technology is now totally ubiquitous in the developed world and becoming more so in developing countries, albeit with a much stronger mobile bias for early technology adopters. That technology is rushing ahead of many individuals and institutions is almost an aphorism with many lagging in its wake. This lag as recognised by Brynjolfson and McAfree (2011) has wide social and economic implications for all members of society, in the case of business those that do not keep up go under. A further pertinent question revolves around how individuals who start from low technological literacy levels or do not keep pace with technological developments are impacted. Dlutu (2013) assesses for example the impact of social network sites on the isiXhosa language and culture in both a rural and urban area of South Africa. Furthermore one may then ask how this technological milieu impacts on the general aspects of the day to day lives and thinking of all members of a society. This gives rise to the concept of technological determinism which in its simplest form states ‘that technology has important effects on our lives’ (Adler, 2008, p. 537). This is far too simplistic when the contemporaneous technological developments are assessed. Adler (2008, p. 537) goes further and recognizes ‘that technology itself is socially determined…and social structures co-evolve in a non-deterministic, emergent process…the effects of any given technology depend mainly on how it is implemented which in turn is socially determined’ (Adler, 2008, p. 537). Engaging this socially determined application of technology can be advanced when the relationship with language and language determinism is considered. Moreover, it is the interplay between technology and language that gives rise to the emerging concept of a language singularity which is brought about by a form of technological determinism. This article seeks to explore the possible effects of rapid technological development on human interaction, language and culture in a ‘globalized’ world which has unequal access to literacy and technology. Furthermore, the article explores the link between language, culture, thought and technology and the type of linguistic and technological determinism that we can anticipate.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
Learning style of Chinese event management students
- Louw, Mattheus J, Louw, Lynette, Li, Yanxia
- Authors: Louw, Mattheus J , Louw, Lynette , Li, Yanxia
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69167 , vital:29438 , https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110366778-028
- Description: There is a demand for social development in China by establishing, inter alia, a framework focusing on the employability of university graduates and developing self-directed learners. The key to achieving this would be to gain a better understanding of how learning styles, as one of the cognitive factors, contribute towards academic performance in order to provide meaningful learning experiences.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Louw, Mattheus J , Louw, Lynette , Li, Yanxia
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69167 , vital:29438 , https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110366778-028
- Description: There is a demand for social development in China by establishing, inter alia, a framework focusing on the employability of university graduates and developing self-directed learners. The key to achieving this would be to gain a better understanding of how learning styles, as one of the cognitive factors, contribute towards academic performance in order to provide meaningful learning experiences.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2016
LCT in mixed-methods research: evolving an instrument for quantitative data
- Maton, Karl, Howard, Sarah Katherine
- Authors: Maton, Karl , Howard, Sarah Katherine
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66479 , vital:28954
- Description: publisher version , A mantra of social science declares a fundamental divide between the quantitative and the qualitative that involves more than methods. According to this depiction, the two methodologies are intrinsically associated with a range of ontological, epistemological, political and moral stances. Each of these constellations of stances is strongly integrated, such that choice of method is held to involve a series of associated choices. Each constellation is also strongly opposed to the other, along axes labelled positivism/constructivism, scientism/humanism, conservative/critical, old/new, among others. These ‘binary constellations’ (Maton 2014b: 148-70) offer a forced choice between two tightly-knit sets of practices that are portrayed as jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive. So widespread is this methodological binarism that many scholars ‘are left with the impression that they have to pledge allegiance to one research school of thought or the other’ (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004: 14). A competing mantra disclaims this divide. Distinctions underpinning the picture of binary constellations have been regularly dissolved. Arguments that one deals with numbers, the other with words, one studies behaviour, the other reveals meanings, one is hypothetico-deductive, the other inductive, one enables generalization, the other explores singular depth, among others, have been repeatedly undermined (e.g. Hammersley 1992). Indeed, the death of the divide is frequently declared. Calls for ‘transcending’ (Salomon 1991) or ‘getting over’ (Howe 1992) the quantitative-qualitative debate and arguments for mixed-methods research (Brannen 2005; Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004) are recurrent. These calls highlight how the methodologies offer complementary insights for research and demonstrate that eschewing either methodology on principle is unnecessarily renouncing potential explanatory power. However, the call to mixed-methods research remains more breached than honoured. Methodological monotheism remains dominant – studies of education and society typically adopt either quantitative or qualitative methods. As we shall discuss, the former is typically associated with the influence of psychology and the latter is often claimed as emblematic of sociology. Studies utilizing the sociological frameworks on which Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) builds have echoed this pattern by overwhelmingly adopting qualitative methods. Accordingly, Part I of this volume begins by exploring how LCT concepts can be enacted in qualitative research (Chapter 2). However, LCT is not limited to one methodology and a growing body of mixed-methods research is engaging with both qualitative and quantitative data. In this chapter we illustrate how this research works and the gains it offers. For resolutely qualitative researchers, the prospect of reading anything quantitative, even in mixed-methods research, may be unenticing. However, it would be a mistake to pass over this chapter, for several reasons. First, we offer insights into research practice that might surprise such scholars. As Bourdieu argued, ‘methodological indictments are too often no more than a disguised way of making a virtue out of necessity, of feigning to dismiss, to ignore in an active way, what one is ignorant of in fact’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 226). Our aim is to contribute towards removing this reason for one-sidedness. We show, for example, how quantitative methods confound their common portrayal as neat, straightforward and procedural; they are complex and involved and require craft work and judgement. Our focus is, therefore, more practical than metaphysical. We shall not enter seemingly endless debates over whether the ‘quantitative-qualitative divide’ refers to paradigms, epistemologies or methods and whether these are complementary or incommensurable. Rather, we discuss the development of an instrument for enacting LCT concepts in quantitative methods and ground this account in real examples of mixed-methods research. Specifically, we trace the evolution of an instrument for embedding specialization codes within questionnaires through its creation for research into school music and then its development within studies of educational technology. Given that mathematics can be off-putting to the noviciate, we minimize discussion of statistics and explain measures in lay terms. Second, this is much more than a story of quantitative methods. The evolution of the instrument both shaped qualitative methods and was shaped by the data they generated, offering insights into how qualitative research can more fully engage with LCT. Its development also involved intimate dialogue with theory that shed fresh light on LCT itself, making explicit the ‘gaze’ embodied by the framework (Chapter 1, this volume). We shall highlight wider lessons learned about the craft of enacting LCT in research, lessons of direct relevance for studies using any methods. Third, we shall illustrate the explanatory power offered by using quantitative and qualitative methods together, such as providing a robust basis for detailed findings, identifying wider-scale trends typically inaccessible to qualitative methods that provide a context for their data, and facilitating knowledge-building through greater replicability across contexts and over time. For example, the technology studies built directly on the music studies to cumulatively develop the instrument and generated probably the largest data set in code sociology: 97,386 responses (83,937 student and 13,449 staff surveys) on the organizing principles of academic subjects, alongside 20 in-depth qualitative case studies of secondary schools. This offers a foundation of substantial breadth and depth for making claims about knowledge practices across the disciplinary map and a firm basis on which future research into disciplinary differences can build. Moreover, the quantitative instrument itself can be adopted or adapted in new studies, further enabling cumulative knowledge-building. Given these substantive, methodological and theoretical gains, it is perhaps surprising there exists any temptation to skip past discussion of mixed-methods research. This reflects the methodological character of the fields in which LCT emerged. We thus begin by briefly illustrating how the sociological frameworks on which the theory builds have become distanced from quantitative methods.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Maton, Karl , Howard, Sarah Katherine
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66479 , vital:28954
- Description: publisher version , A mantra of social science declares a fundamental divide between the quantitative and the qualitative that involves more than methods. According to this depiction, the two methodologies are intrinsically associated with a range of ontological, epistemological, political and moral stances. Each of these constellations of stances is strongly integrated, such that choice of method is held to involve a series of associated choices. Each constellation is also strongly opposed to the other, along axes labelled positivism/constructivism, scientism/humanism, conservative/critical, old/new, among others. These ‘binary constellations’ (Maton 2014b: 148-70) offer a forced choice between two tightly-knit sets of practices that are portrayed as jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive. So widespread is this methodological binarism that many scholars ‘are left with the impression that they have to pledge allegiance to one research school of thought or the other’ (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004: 14). A competing mantra disclaims this divide. Distinctions underpinning the picture of binary constellations have been regularly dissolved. Arguments that one deals with numbers, the other with words, one studies behaviour, the other reveals meanings, one is hypothetico-deductive, the other inductive, one enables generalization, the other explores singular depth, among others, have been repeatedly undermined (e.g. Hammersley 1992). Indeed, the death of the divide is frequently declared. Calls for ‘transcending’ (Salomon 1991) or ‘getting over’ (Howe 1992) the quantitative-qualitative debate and arguments for mixed-methods research (Brannen 2005; Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004) are recurrent. These calls highlight how the methodologies offer complementary insights for research and demonstrate that eschewing either methodology on principle is unnecessarily renouncing potential explanatory power. However, the call to mixed-methods research remains more breached than honoured. Methodological monotheism remains dominant – studies of education and society typically adopt either quantitative or qualitative methods. As we shall discuss, the former is typically associated with the influence of psychology and the latter is often claimed as emblematic of sociology. Studies utilizing the sociological frameworks on which Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) builds have echoed this pattern by overwhelmingly adopting qualitative methods. Accordingly, Part I of this volume begins by exploring how LCT concepts can be enacted in qualitative research (Chapter 2). However, LCT is not limited to one methodology and a growing body of mixed-methods research is engaging with both qualitative and quantitative data. In this chapter we illustrate how this research works and the gains it offers. For resolutely qualitative researchers, the prospect of reading anything quantitative, even in mixed-methods research, may be unenticing. However, it would be a mistake to pass over this chapter, for several reasons. First, we offer insights into research practice that might surprise such scholars. As Bourdieu argued, ‘methodological indictments are too often no more than a disguised way of making a virtue out of necessity, of feigning to dismiss, to ignore in an active way, what one is ignorant of in fact’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 226). Our aim is to contribute towards removing this reason for one-sidedness. We show, for example, how quantitative methods confound their common portrayal as neat, straightforward and procedural; they are complex and involved and require craft work and judgement. Our focus is, therefore, more practical than metaphysical. We shall not enter seemingly endless debates over whether the ‘quantitative-qualitative divide’ refers to paradigms, epistemologies or methods and whether these are complementary or incommensurable. Rather, we discuss the development of an instrument for enacting LCT concepts in quantitative methods and ground this account in real examples of mixed-methods research. Specifically, we trace the evolution of an instrument for embedding specialization codes within questionnaires through its creation for research into school music and then its development within studies of educational technology. Given that mathematics can be off-putting to the noviciate, we minimize discussion of statistics and explain measures in lay terms. Second, this is much more than a story of quantitative methods. The evolution of the instrument both shaped qualitative methods and was shaped by the data they generated, offering insights into how qualitative research can more fully engage with LCT. Its development also involved intimate dialogue with theory that shed fresh light on LCT itself, making explicit the ‘gaze’ embodied by the framework (Chapter 1, this volume). We shall highlight wider lessons learned about the craft of enacting LCT in research, lessons of direct relevance for studies using any methods. Third, we shall illustrate the explanatory power offered by using quantitative and qualitative methods together, such as providing a robust basis for detailed findings, identifying wider-scale trends typically inaccessible to qualitative methods that provide a context for their data, and facilitating knowledge-building through greater replicability across contexts and over time. For example, the technology studies built directly on the music studies to cumulatively develop the instrument and generated probably the largest data set in code sociology: 97,386 responses (83,937 student and 13,449 staff surveys) on the organizing principles of academic subjects, alongside 20 in-depth qualitative case studies of secondary schools. This offers a foundation of substantial breadth and depth for making claims about knowledge practices across the disciplinary map and a firm basis on which future research into disciplinary differences can build. Moreover, the quantitative instrument itself can be adopted or adapted in new studies, further enabling cumulative knowledge-building. Given these substantive, methodological and theoretical gains, it is perhaps surprising there exists any temptation to skip past discussion of mixed-methods research. This reflects the methodological character of the fields in which LCT emerged. We thus begin by briefly illustrating how the sociological frameworks on which the theory builds have become distanced from quantitative methods.
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- Date Issued: 2016