Exploring parents’ participation in school governance with the purpose of developing parents’ leadership: a formative intervention in a Namibian combined rural school
- Authors: Nghiteeka, Hileni
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Educational leadership -- Namibia , Education, Secondary -- Parent participation – Namibia , Democracy and education -- Namibia , Transformational leadership -- Namibia , Rural schools -- Namibia , School management and organization – Namibia , Cultural Historical Activity Theory
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145045 , vital:38403
- Description: In a post-independent Namibia, the Education Act 16 of 2001 accorded democratic rights and equal opportunities to all education stakeholders, including parents, to be involved in educational decision-making in schools. This involvement advocated increasing the voice of the educational stakeholders at a grass roots level in an attempt to redress the past injustices of the apartheid education system. However, the studies carried out internationally, as well as in Africa and Namibia, reveal that the issue of democratic participation in school decisions is a restricted reality. This study was conducted in Happy (pseudonym) combined school, a state rural school in the Oshikoto Region, Northern Namibia, aimed at exploring parents’ participation in school governance. The study adopted an interventionist approach to develop parents’ leadership in school. Framed by a distributed leadership perspective, the main purpose of the study was to seek parents’ voices through participation for them to be catalysts for change in transforming parents’ leadership in school. For its theoretical and analytical framing, the study adopted the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). The study findings revealed that parents’ leadership as a concept was understood differently in the case study school and it was practiced within the boundaries of policies. Through the lens of distributed leadership, it was evident that distributed leadership was still in its infancy in the school, as only the characterisations of an authorised distributed leadership were evident in this school. The CHAT analysis revealed that parents’ leadership was constrained due to a number of challenges, including language barriers, transport to and from meetings and a lack of support from other parents and some teachers. Study participants, through participation in a Change Laboratory workshop process, envisioned some models such as raising funds to serve as an incentive for parents’ School Board members and for an information dissemination committee within the community to do educational campaigns in an effort to enhance parents’ leadership in school. To unleash distributed leadership in schools, the study offered some recommendations, including that parents’ leadership should be included as part of the curriculum at higher institutions in order to sensitise educators to this critical aspect of leadership, prior to joining the profession. Another recommendation was for stakeholders to make use of the study’s findings, when designing workshop materials and conducting workshops. Finally, the study recommended further interventionist research to be conducted on the same research topic, preferably on a larger scale, in an effort to add to the body of knowledge in the field of leadership and management, particularly with regards to parental leadership.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Nghiteeka, Hileni
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Educational leadership -- Namibia , Education, Secondary -- Parent participation – Namibia , Democracy and education -- Namibia , Transformational leadership -- Namibia , Rural schools -- Namibia , School management and organization – Namibia , Cultural Historical Activity Theory
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145045 , vital:38403
- Description: In a post-independent Namibia, the Education Act 16 of 2001 accorded democratic rights and equal opportunities to all education stakeholders, including parents, to be involved in educational decision-making in schools. This involvement advocated increasing the voice of the educational stakeholders at a grass roots level in an attempt to redress the past injustices of the apartheid education system. However, the studies carried out internationally, as well as in Africa and Namibia, reveal that the issue of democratic participation in school decisions is a restricted reality. This study was conducted in Happy (pseudonym) combined school, a state rural school in the Oshikoto Region, Northern Namibia, aimed at exploring parents’ participation in school governance. The study adopted an interventionist approach to develop parents’ leadership in school. Framed by a distributed leadership perspective, the main purpose of the study was to seek parents’ voices through participation for them to be catalysts for change in transforming parents’ leadership in school. For its theoretical and analytical framing, the study adopted the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). The study findings revealed that parents’ leadership as a concept was understood differently in the case study school and it was practiced within the boundaries of policies. Through the lens of distributed leadership, it was evident that distributed leadership was still in its infancy in the school, as only the characterisations of an authorised distributed leadership were evident in this school. The CHAT analysis revealed that parents’ leadership was constrained due to a number of challenges, including language barriers, transport to and from meetings and a lack of support from other parents and some teachers. Study participants, through participation in a Change Laboratory workshop process, envisioned some models such as raising funds to serve as an incentive for parents’ School Board members and for an information dissemination committee within the community to do educational campaigns in an effort to enhance parents’ leadership in school. To unleash distributed leadership in schools, the study offered some recommendations, including that parents’ leadership should be included as part of the curriculum at higher institutions in order to sensitise educators to this critical aspect of leadership, prior to joining the profession. Another recommendation was for stakeholders to make use of the study’s findings, when designing workshop materials and conducting workshops. Finally, the study recommended further interventionist research to be conducted on the same research topic, preferably on a larger scale, in an effort to add to the body of knowledge in the field of leadership and management, particularly with regards to parental leadership.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Women’s narratives about alcohol use during pregnancy: a narrative-discursive study
- Authors: Matebese, Sibongile
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Pregnant women -- South Africa -- Social conditions , Pregnant women -- South Africa -- Alcohol use , Pregnant women -- South Africa -- Psychology
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/95196 , vital:31126
- Description: While research has explored the risk factors that contribute to alcohol use during pregnancy among South African women, such studies have mostly been quantitative in nature. There is a growing body of research that contextualises and articulates the attitudes, beliefs, and underlying motivations that influence drinking during pregnancy. However, few qualitative studies explore the cultural, economic, familial, and social contexts within which drinking during pregnancy takes place. Studies which have explored these contexts have been conducted in other geographical regions such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States but their findings are not generalisable to South Africa. Drawing on a feminist poststructuralist as well as a narrative-discursive approach including Foucault’s (1978) theory of power, this study sought to explore women’s narratives of the personal and interpersonal circumstances under which drinking during pregnancy takes place in terms of the discourses used to construct these narratives and the subject positions made available within these discourses. This allowed for the practice of alcohol use during pregnancy to be understood within the social and cultural narratives, practices, and discourses around pregnancy as well as gendered and social relations. Using the narrative interview method set out by Wengraf (2001), thirteen, unemployed ‘Black’ women from an area in the Eastern Cape were recruited and interviewed. Seven discourses emerged from the narratives namely, a discourse of ‘stress and coping’ ‘hegemonic masculinities’, ‘peer pressure’, ‘disablement and developmental delay’, ‘good mothering/appropriate pregnancies’, ‘culture’, and ‘religion’. These discourses informed the five narrative categories which emerged: narratives about the pregnancy, narratives about the drinking, narratives that justify/explain drinking, narratives that condemn the drinking, and narratives about the women knowing the effects of drinking during pregnancy. Within these narratives, the women mainly positioned themselves as dependent on alcohol during their pregnancies in order to cope with stress caused by various circumstances which were mainly centred on a lack of support from their partners, paternity denial, infidelity and unreliableness. As such, the women in this study mainly justified their drinking during pregnancy and in constructing this narrative, the ‘stress and coping’ discourse as well as the ‘male/masculine provider’ discourse were mainly drawn upon. In reflecting on this analysis, this study argues that alcohol use during pregnancy should be understood within the broader environmental and social context that makes a pregnancy challenging and/or difficult and thus necessitates drinking during pregnancy. Recommendations for future research include expanding the diversity of participants as well as interviewing healthcare providers and women who are currently pregnant, drinking, and part of an intervention aimed at addressing alcohol use during pregnancy so as to obtain a holistic understanding of engaging in this practice. The study makes key recommendations for interventions in practice to help work towards ensuring that the practice of alcohol use during pregnancy is not individualised, decontextualized, and stigmatised.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Matebese, Sibongile
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Pregnant women -- South Africa -- Social conditions , Pregnant women -- South Africa -- Alcohol use , Pregnant women -- South Africa -- Psychology
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/95196 , vital:31126
- Description: While research has explored the risk factors that contribute to alcohol use during pregnancy among South African women, such studies have mostly been quantitative in nature. There is a growing body of research that contextualises and articulates the attitudes, beliefs, and underlying motivations that influence drinking during pregnancy. However, few qualitative studies explore the cultural, economic, familial, and social contexts within which drinking during pregnancy takes place. Studies which have explored these contexts have been conducted in other geographical regions such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States but their findings are not generalisable to South Africa. Drawing on a feminist poststructuralist as well as a narrative-discursive approach including Foucault’s (1978) theory of power, this study sought to explore women’s narratives of the personal and interpersonal circumstances under which drinking during pregnancy takes place in terms of the discourses used to construct these narratives and the subject positions made available within these discourses. This allowed for the practice of alcohol use during pregnancy to be understood within the social and cultural narratives, practices, and discourses around pregnancy as well as gendered and social relations. Using the narrative interview method set out by Wengraf (2001), thirteen, unemployed ‘Black’ women from an area in the Eastern Cape were recruited and interviewed. Seven discourses emerged from the narratives namely, a discourse of ‘stress and coping’ ‘hegemonic masculinities’, ‘peer pressure’, ‘disablement and developmental delay’, ‘good mothering/appropriate pregnancies’, ‘culture’, and ‘religion’. These discourses informed the five narrative categories which emerged: narratives about the pregnancy, narratives about the drinking, narratives that justify/explain drinking, narratives that condemn the drinking, and narratives about the women knowing the effects of drinking during pregnancy. Within these narratives, the women mainly positioned themselves as dependent on alcohol during their pregnancies in order to cope with stress caused by various circumstances which were mainly centred on a lack of support from their partners, paternity denial, infidelity and unreliableness. As such, the women in this study mainly justified their drinking during pregnancy and in constructing this narrative, the ‘stress and coping’ discourse as well as the ‘male/masculine provider’ discourse were mainly drawn upon. In reflecting on this analysis, this study argues that alcohol use during pregnancy should be understood within the broader environmental and social context that makes a pregnancy challenging and/or difficult and thus necessitates drinking during pregnancy. Recommendations for future research include expanding the diversity of participants as well as interviewing healthcare providers and women who are currently pregnant, drinking, and part of an intervention aimed at addressing alcohol use during pregnancy so as to obtain a holistic understanding of engaging in this practice. The study makes key recommendations for interventions in practice to help work towards ensuring that the practice of alcohol use during pregnancy is not individualised, decontextualized, and stigmatised.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
A case study of Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary as a community driven Community-Based Natural Resource Management initiative : maintaining livelihoods and wetland health
- Authors: Gosling, Amanda Karen
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Wetland conservation -- Uganda , Wetland ecology -- Uganda , Natural resources management areas -- Uganda , Rural development -- Uganda
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4752 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007065 , Wetland conservation -- Uganda , Wetland ecology -- Uganda , Natural resources management areas -- Uganda , Rural development -- Uganda
- Description: Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) is considered a win-win approach to reconcile conservation with natural resource use. CBNRM aims to accomplish conservation whilst prioritising development and contributing to poverty alleviation. This study analysed the different components of a CBNRM initiative, Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary (BWS), located in western Uganda. The study was carried out by interviewing the managing committee members (n= 8) as well as local households (n= 68) regarding the manner in which the project works, and the associated benefits and constraints. The main management issues recognised were a lack of monitoring and committee cohesiveness. The information gathered through the household survey enabled the calculation of the value of local livelihood options. This was done on the premise that conservation is better accepted when land users realise the economic value of natural resources. The average annual value of household livelihoods was represented by 30% crop production, 57% natural resource use, and 13% livestock. Lastly, wetland assessments were performed using the WET-Health and WET-EcoServices methodologies from the Wetland Management Series. These assessments indicated that the impacts of local livelihoods on the wetland were currently low but potential issues could arise with the increasing human population density. Ultimately, BWS presents both environmental and social costs and benefits. With a detailed and interdisciplinary method specific recommendations of improvement can be made to reduce such costs and further reconcile the conservation of Bigodi Wetland with local natural resource use..
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Gosling, Amanda Karen
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Wetland conservation -- Uganda , Wetland ecology -- Uganda , Natural resources management areas -- Uganda , Rural development -- Uganda
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4752 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007065 , Wetland conservation -- Uganda , Wetland ecology -- Uganda , Natural resources management areas -- Uganda , Rural development -- Uganda
- Description: Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) is considered a win-win approach to reconcile conservation with natural resource use. CBNRM aims to accomplish conservation whilst prioritising development and contributing to poverty alleviation. This study analysed the different components of a CBNRM initiative, Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary (BWS), located in western Uganda. The study was carried out by interviewing the managing committee members (n= 8) as well as local households (n= 68) regarding the manner in which the project works, and the associated benefits and constraints. The main management issues recognised were a lack of monitoring and committee cohesiveness. The information gathered through the household survey enabled the calculation of the value of local livelihood options. This was done on the premise that conservation is better accepted when land users realise the economic value of natural resources. The average annual value of household livelihoods was represented by 30% crop production, 57% natural resource use, and 13% livestock. Lastly, wetland assessments were performed using the WET-Health and WET-EcoServices methodologies from the Wetland Management Series. These assessments indicated that the impacts of local livelihoods on the wetland were currently low but potential issues could arise with the increasing human population density. Ultimately, BWS presents both environmental and social costs and benefits. With a detailed and interdisciplinary method specific recommendations of improvement can be made to reduce such costs and further reconcile the conservation of Bigodi Wetland with local natural resource use..
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Assessment of the environmental condition, Ecosystem service provision and sustainability of use of two wetlands in the Kamiesberg uplands:
- Kotze, Donovan C, Malan, H, Ellery, William F N, Samuals, I, Saul, L
- Authors: Kotze, Donovan C , Malan, H , Ellery, William F N , Samuals, I , Saul, L
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/157135 , vital:40089 , http://www.wrc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/TT439-09 Conservation of Water Ecosystems.pdf
- Description: This report is one of the outputs of the Wetland Health and Importance (WHI) research programme which was funded by the Water Research Commission. The WHI represents Phase II of the National Wetlands Research Programme and was formerly known as “Wetland Health and Integrity”. Phase I, under the leadership of Professor Ellery, resulted in the “WET-Management” series of publications. Phase II, the WHI programme, was broadly aimed at assessing wetland environmental condition and socio-economic importance.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Kotze, Donovan C , Malan, H , Ellery, William F N , Samuals, I , Saul, L
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/157135 , vital:40089 , http://www.wrc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/TT439-09 Conservation of Water Ecosystems.pdf
- Description: This report is one of the outputs of the Wetland Health and Importance (WHI) research programme which was funded by the Water Research Commission. The WHI represents Phase II of the National Wetlands Research Programme and was formerly known as “Wetland Health and Integrity”. Phase I, under the leadership of Professor Ellery, resulted in the “WET-Management” series of publications. Phase II, the WHI programme, was broadly aimed at assessing wetland environmental condition and socio-economic importance.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
Settler women's experiences of fear, illness and isolation, with particular reference to the Eastern Cape Frontier, 1820-1890
- Authors: Dampier, Helen
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Women -- South Africa -- History , Women -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Social conditions , Women -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- History , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Frontier and pioneer life -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2537 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002389 , Women -- South Africa -- History , Women -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Social conditions , Women -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- History , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Frontier and pioneer life -- South Africa
- Description: This thesis is an exploration of diaries and letters written by middle-class English-speaking settler women living on the Eastern Cape frontier between 1820 and 1890. By according primacy to these women’s experiences and perceptions, it aims for a greater understanding of women’s encounters with the frontier, and how these were articulated in their personal writing. An emphasis on the recurrent themes of ill-health, fearfulness and solitude undermines the popular myth of the brave, conquering, invincible pioneers which dominates settler historiography to date. The tensions felt by white women living on the frontier disrupted their identities as middle-class Victorian ‘ladies’, and as a result these women either constantly re-established a sense of self, or absorbed some aspects of the Eastern Cape, and thus redefined themselves. Settler women’s experiences of the frontier changed little during the seventy year period spanned by this study, indicating that frontier life led to a rigidification and reinforcement of old, familiar values and behaviours. Rather than adapting to and embracing their new surroundings, settler women sought to duplicate accepted, conventional Victorian ideals and customs. White Victorian women identified themselves as refined, civilized, moral and respectable, and perceived Africa and Africans as untamed, immoral, uncivilized and threatening. To keep these menacing, destabilizing forces at bay, settler women attempted to recreate ‘home’ in the Eastern Cape; to domesticate the frontier by rendering it as familiar and predictable as possible. The fear, illness and solitariness that characterise settler women’s personal writings manifest their attempts to eliminate alienating difference, and record their refusal to truly engage with the frontier landscape and its inhabitants.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
- Authors: Dampier, Helen
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Women -- South Africa -- History , Women -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Social conditions , Women -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- History , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Frontier and pioneer life -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2537 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002389 , Women -- South Africa -- History , Women -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Social conditions , Women -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- History , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Frontier and pioneer life -- South Africa
- Description: This thesis is an exploration of diaries and letters written by middle-class English-speaking settler women living on the Eastern Cape frontier between 1820 and 1890. By according primacy to these women’s experiences and perceptions, it aims for a greater understanding of women’s encounters with the frontier, and how these were articulated in their personal writing. An emphasis on the recurrent themes of ill-health, fearfulness and solitude undermines the popular myth of the brave, conquering, invincible pioneers which dominates settler historiography to date. The tensions felt by white women living on the frontier disrupted their identities as middle-class Victorian ‘ladies’, and as a result these women either constantly re-established a sense of self, or absorbed some aspects of the Eastern Cape, and thus redefined themselves. Settler women’s experiences of the frontier changed little during the seventy year period spanned by this study, indicating that frontier life led to a rigidification and reinforcement of old, familiar values and behaviours. Rather than adapting to and embracing their new surroundings, settler women sought to duplicate accepted, conventional Victorian ideals and customs. White Victorian women identified themselves as refined, civilized, moral and respectable, and perceived Africa and Africans as untamed, immoral, uncivilized and threatening. To keep these menacing, destabilizing forces at bay, settler women attempted to recreate ‘home’ in the Eastern Cape; to domesticate the frontier by rendering it as familiar and predictable as possible. The fear, illness and solitariness that characterise settler women’s personal writings manifest their attempts to eliminate alienating difference, and record their refusal to truly engage with the frontier landscape and its inhabitants.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
Re-creating home: British colonialism, culture and the Zuurveld environment in the nineteenth century
- Authors: Payne, Jill
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: Imperialism -- Social aspects , Imperialism -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa , Imperialism -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2552 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002404 , Imperialism -- Social aspects , Imperialism -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa , Imperialism -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: This thesis centres on the environmental impact of British colonialism in the Zuurveld during the nineteenth century. Within this context, it addresses the extent to which human-engineered environmental change is dictated by cultural mindset. Consideration of the links between culture and landscape transformation illuminates a little-considered aspect of the colonial experience in the Zuurveld. The British worldview at the turn of the eighteenth century is examined, with special reference to attitudes towards the environment. The changes which occurred in this attitude while the colonists adjusted to a foreign environment are traced. Precolonial societies manipulated the environment to a certain extent, but it was the British colonists who were to have the most profound effect on the ecosystem. The colonists impacted on the Zuurveld in a variety of ways. Much of the environmental change they induced resulted from their attempts to construct a familiar world from the alien landscape surrounding them. Attempts to "re-create home" in the Zuurveld were closely linked to the desire to exert control over what was to the colonists an "untamed wilderness." To this end land was cleared and new land use methods put into practice. Wildlife species threatening productivity were eliminated or forced through loss of habitat to retreat to the peripheries of the settlement. Exotic flora and fauna took the place of indigenes. The introduction of a capitalist economy meant that greater demands were made on the carrying capacity of the land. Conservation legislation introduced to limit increasing environmental degradation and protect commercial productivity simultaneously limited African access to the environment. Control of the land was closely linked to control of Africans: their labour was needed to facilitate the subjugation of the environment. Only through an appreciation of the British colonial mentality can changes to the Zuurveld environment during the nineteenth century be fully understood. Consequently, this study indicates that cultural mindset can play a pivotal role in shaping the environment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1999
- Authors: Payne, Jill
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: Imperialism -- Social aspects , Imperialism -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa , Imperialism -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2552 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002404 , Imperialism -- Social aspects , Imperialism -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa , Imperialism -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: This thesis centres on the environmental impact of British colonialism in the Zuurveld during the nineteenth century. Within this context, it addresses the extent to which human-engineered environmental change is dictated by cultural mindset. Consideration of the links between culture and landscape transformation illuminates a little-considered aspect of the colonial experience in the Zuurveld. The British worldview at the turn of the eighteenth century is examined, with special reference to attitudes towards the environment. The changes which occurred in this attitude while the colonists adjusted to a foreign environment are traced. Precolonial societies manipulated the environment to a certain extent, but it was the British colonists who were to have the most profound effect on the ecosystem. The colonists impacted on the Zuurveld in a variety of ways. Much of the environmental change they induced resulted from their attempts to construct a familiar world from the alien landscape surrounding them. Attempts to "re-create home" in the Zuurveld were closely linked to the desire to exert control over what was to the colonists an "untamed wilderness." To this end land was cleared and new land use methods put into practice. Wildlife species threatening productivity were eliminated or forced through loss of habitat to retreat to the peripheries of the settlement. Exotic flora and fauna took the place of indigenes. The introduction of a capitalist economy meant that greater demands were made on the carrying capacity of the land. Conservation legislation introduced to limit increasing environmental degradation and protect commercial productivity simultaneously limited African access to the environment. Control of the land was closely linked to control of Africans: their labour was needed to facilitate the subjugation of the environment. Only through an appreciation of the British colonial mentality can changes to the Zuurveld environment during the nineteenth century be fully understood. Consequently, this study indicates that cultural mindset can play a pivotal role in shaping the environment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1999
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