An activity theoretical investigation into how leadership can be developed within a group of class monitors in a Namibian secondary school
- Authors: Kalimbo, Tomas
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: School management and organization -- Namibia , Educational leadership -- Namibia , Education, Secondary -- Namibia , Student government -- Namibia , Student participation in administration -- Namibia , Cultural Historical Activity Theory
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61734 , vital:28053
- Description: Literature suggests that developing leadership in learners benefits them and their schools in general. Learners are prepared as future leaders and they gain leadership skills and democratic values and principles. Learner leaders therefore contribute to transformation in their schools. However, research on the same topic has also found that learners have limited leadership development opportunities, as they are not authentically and democratically involved in leadership in many schools. Informed by the distributed perspective of leadership, this study investigates how leadership can be developed within a group of class monitors in a Namibian secondary school. Its overarching goal was to develop leadership and build transformative agency within class monitors. The study was designed as an interventionist study, theoretically and analytically framed by Engestrom’s second generation of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). Multiple methods were used for data collection, including questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, document analysis and Change Laboratory workshops. Data analysis took the form of content analysis and coding, as well as using the CHAT lens to surface contradictions. The findings of the study revealed that there was conceptual awareness on what learner leadership and leadership development meant among participants. However, little was being done to develop leadership in class monitors. Traditional leadership practices and cultural belief that learners are mere children, as well as confinement to formal leadership structures and policies were the main hindering inner contradictions within the research school. A formative intervention was instituted through the Change Laboratory workshop process and it resulted in leadership training to capacitate and empower class monitors, as well as enhance their transformative agency. The study thus recommends for a shift from traditional autocratic leadership practices to a contemporary distributed perspective of leadership that recognises the need to develop leadership in learners.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Kalimbo, Tomas
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: School management and organization -- Namibia , Educational leadership -- Namibia , Education, Secondary -- Namibia , Student government -- Namibia , Student participation in administration -- Namibia , Cultural Historical Activity Theory
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61734 , vital:28053
- Description: Literature suggests that developing leadership in learners benefits them and their schools in general. Learners are prepared as future leaders and they gain leadership skills and democratic values and principles. Learner leaders therefore contribute to transformation in their schools. However, research on the same topic has also found that learners have limited leadership development opportunities, as they are not authentically and democratically involved in leadership in many schools. Informed by the distributed perspective of leadership, this study investigates how leadership can be developed within a group of class monitors in a Namibian secondary school. Its overarching goal was to develop leadership and build transformative agency within class monitors. The study was designed as an interventionist study, theoretically and analytically framed by Engestrom’s second generation of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). Multiple methods were used for data collection, including questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, document analysis and Change Laboratory workshops. Data analysis took the form of content analysis and coding, as well as using the CHAT lens to surface contradictions. The findings of the study revealed that there was conceptual awareness on what learner leadership and leadership development meant among participants. However, little was being done to develop leadership in class monitors. Traditional leadership practices and cultural belief that learners are mere children, as well as confinement to formal leadership structures and policies were the main hindering inner contradictions within the research school. A formative intervention was instituted through the Change Laboratory workshop process and it resulted in leadership training to capacitate and empower class monitors, as well as enhance their transformative agency. The study thus recommends for a shift from traditional autocratic leadership practices to a contemporary distributed perspective of leadership that recognises the need to develop leadership in learners.
- Full Text:
Zooming in: an ethnographic study of visual journalism for smartphones - journalistic roles and routines at South Africa’s largest graphics unit, Graphics24
- Authors: Gouws, Andries Jacobus
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Journalism -- Technological innovations -- South Africa , Smartphones , Visual communication -- Digital techniques , News Web sites -- South Africa , Online journalism -- South Africa , Information visualization , Graphic arts , Graphics24 , Netwerk24
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63154 , vital:28368
- Description: This study examines the changing roles of graphics journalists in the digital era at Graphics24, the largest information graphics newsroom in South Africa, in the context of their work for Netwerk24, an online news site published in Afrikaans with a strong focus on mobile-first news. The study examines the discursive construction of these new journalistic roles in the digital era where even the core conceptualisation of what journalism is, is being re-examined. It considers external factors affecting the discourse of change, drawing on a hierarchy of influences analytical model, as well as norms specific to the creation of information graphics. Data for this study was gathered by using ethnographic immersion and semi-structured interviews. This study specifically looks at graphics journalists working in a mobile-first environment, and how the pressures of producing information graphics for consumption on smartphones affects their roles. Evidence of two widely differing discourses in the Graphics24 and Netwerk24 newsrooms was found. Visual journalists in this study have created a discourse around being distinct “service providers”, rather than mobile-first journalists, who do not see the need for full integration in the fast-paced mobile news environment of Netwerk24. Word-centric journalists have, by contrast, created a mobile-first discourse. They experience the separateness of the graphics team as a barrier that impedes the creation of good information graphics for mobile phone consumption. Although this is a very localised study in a very particular context, this study contributes to broader thinking in what is a very under-researched field: The changing roles of visual journalists in the digital era and the discursive construction of these roles. The study suggests that even in the digital era where the definition of newsrooms has become much more fluid and less fixed physically, ethnographic methods can still offer a meaningful way to explore journalistic roles.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Gouws, Andries Jacobus
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Journalism -- Technological innovations -- South Africa , Smartphones , Visual communication -- Digital techniques , News Web sites -- South Africa , Online journalism -- South Africa , Information visualization , Graphic arts , Graphics24 , Netwerk24
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63154 , vital:28368
- Description: This study examines the changing roles of graphics journalists in the digital era at Graphics24, the largest information graphics newsroom in South Africa, in the context of their work for Netwerk24, an online news site published in Afrikaans with a strong focus on mobile-first news. The study examines the discursive construction of these new journalistic roles in the digital era where even the core conceptualisation of what journalism is, is being re-examined. It considers external factors affecting the discourse of change, drawing on a hierarchy of influences analytical model, as well as norms specific to the creation of information graphics. Data for this study was gathered by using ethnographic immersion and semi-structured interviews. This study specifically looks at graphics journalists working in a mobile-first environment, and how the pressures of producing information graphics for consumption on smartphones affects their roles. Evidence of two widely differing discourses in the Graphics24 and Netwerk24 newsrooms was found. Visual journalists in this study have created a discourse around being distinct “service providers”, rather than mobile-first journalists, who do not see the need for full integration in the fast-paced mobile news environment of Netwerk24. Word-centric journalists have, by contrast, created a mobile-first discourse. They experience the separateness of the graphics team as a barrier that impedes the creation of good information graphics for mobile phone consumption. Although this is a very localised study in a very particular context, this study contributes to broader thinking in what is a very under-researched field: The changing roles of visual journalists in the digital era and the discursive construction of these roles. The study suggests that even in the digital era where the definition of newsrooms has become much more fluid and less fixed physically, ethnographic methods can still offer a meaningful way to explore journalistic roles.
- Full Text:
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »