The use of smartphones and visualisation processes for conceptual understanding of mensuration: a case study of the Mathcitymap Project in Namibia
- Authors: Shimakeleni, Liina
- Date: 2022-04-08
- Subjects: Mathematics Study and teaching (Secondary) Namibia Oshana , Smartphones , Visual learning , Measurement , Concept learning , MathCityMap (MCM) project
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/290649 , vital:56771
- Description: The aim of this study was to investigate and analyse the potential use of smartphones as visualisation tools by learners to enhance conceptual understanding through mathematics trails developed using the MathCityMap (MCM) project. This research study is part of the VIPROmaths project which seeks to research the effective use of visualisation processes in mathematics classrooms in South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Switzerland and Germany. This study adopted a case of twelve purposively selected Grade 9 learners from a school in the Eheke circuit of the Oshana region, Namibia. This study was framed within a social constructivist perspective and sought to investigate visualisation processes as well as conceptual understanding of learners as they conceptualised the MCM tasks in new, outdoor and collaborative learning situations. The MCM app was installed on selected learners’ smartphones to access and to walk the MCM trails located in various places in the schoolyard. Three MCM trails based on three key themes of mensuration (perimeter, area and volume) were created. Each consisted of four tasks that were sourced and developed in line with the Grade 9 Namibian mathematics syllabus. This study is oriented in an interpretive paradigm and employed video-recorded observations and focus group interviews as qualitative data collection methods. Data collected were analysed first using the themes developed from Ho’s (2010) work on visualisation processes and Kilpatrick, Swafford, and Findell’s (2001) conceptual understanding. During analysis, some themes emerged from the data and were considered. Findings from this study revealed that smartphones afforded learners ample opportunities to enhance the visualisation processes that they went through as they learned the concepts of measurement. In addition to this, some learners were initially pessimistic regarding the use of smartphones for learning purposes. This study recommends that resources such as MCM be effectively be used in formal school settings. The learning of measurement can be advanced in outdoor settings where learners have physical and spatial access to the learning content. Smartphone technology can be used as an additional tool to integrate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in learning mathematics within the Namibian context. , Thesis (MED) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-08
- Authors: Shimakeleni, Liina
- Date: 2022-04-08
- Subjects: Mathematics Study and teaching (Secondary) Namibia Oshana , Smartphones , Visual learning , Measurement , Concept learning , MathCityMap (MCM) project
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/290649 , vital:56771
- Description: The aim of this study was to investigate and analyse the potential use of smartphones as visualisation tools by learners to enhance conceptual understanding through mathematics trails developed using the MathCityMap (MCM) project. This research study is part of the VIPROmaths project which seeks to research the effective use of visualisation processes in mathematics classrooms in South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Switzerland and Germany. This study adopted a case of twelve purposively selected Grade 9 learners from a school in the Eheke circuit of the Oshana region, Namibia. This study was framed within a social constructivist perspective and sought to investigate visualisation processes as well as conceptual understanding of learners as they conceptualised the MCM tasks in new, outdoor and collaborative learning situations. The MCM app was installed on selected learners’ smartphones to access and to walk the MCM trails located in various places in the schoolyard. Three MCM trails based on three key themes of mensuration (perimeter, area and volume) were created. Each consisted of four tasks that were sourced and developed in line with the Grade 9 Namibian mathematics syllabus. This study is oriented in an interpretive paradigm and employed video-recorded observations and focus group interviews as qualitative data collection methods. Data collected were analysed first using the themes developed from Ho’s (2010) work on visualisation processes and Kilpatrick, Swafford, and Findell’s (2001) conceptual understanding. During analysis, some themes emerged from the data and were considered. Findings from this study revealed that smartphones afforded learners ample opportunities to enhance the visualisation processes that they went through as they learned the concepts of measurement. In addition to this, some learners were initially pessimistic regarding the use of smartphones for learning purposes. This study recommends that resources such as MCM be effectively be used in formal school settings. The learning of measurement can be advanced in outdoor settings where learners have physical and spatial access to the learning content. Smartphone technology can be used as an additional tool to integrate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in learning mathematics within the Namibian context. , Thesis (MED) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-08
Towards the Common Good: An expansive post-abyssal (Re)stor(y)ing of the epistemic cultures of the citizen sciences
- Authors: Vallabh, Priya
- Date: 2022-04-08
- Subjects: Science Citizen participation , Decolonization , Social epistemology , Hegemony , Common good , Traditional ecological knowledge , Ethnoscience
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/290671 , vital:56773 , DOI 10.21504/10962/290671
- Description: In this study I explore and explain transformatiThe citizen sciences convene complex and reflexive ecologies of knowledges in response to a range of social-ecological risks. Their epistemic cultures seem to be assembled in ways which increase potential mobilisation of the common knowledges being produced, thereby producing knowledges in forms that are more strongly aligned with a range of implementation strategies. However, much of such processes of knowledge production have been ‘cleaned out’ of official accounts through scientifically hegemonic systems of legitimation, deepening hegemonically-entrenched systems of epistemic, contributory and distributive injustices, and undermining the potential for stronger enactments of participatory and radical democracies. The engagement of sociologies of absences and emergences in this study evidence these epistemic insights, thereby evidencing an expansive post-abyssal (re)stor(y)ing of the citizen sciences. Through this research, I consider knowledge production as ‘commoning', towards the constitution of the common good. To date, most accounts of knowledge production within citizen science projects primarily focus on scientific processes of knowledge production and legitimation. Such accounts neglect the ecologies of diverse knowledges through which knowledge is being collaboratively produced, the forms of learning that occur, or the ways in which such ecologies are mobilised in response to specific socialecological risks. To better understand the ways in which citizen science projects build risk-responsive common knowledge, I bring a focus to the diversity of epistemic cultures convened, speaking to this gap. My primary research question is: How do the epistemic cultures within citizen science projects enable commoning in response to social-ecological risk? To begin, I establish a particular vantage point from which the remainder of the thesis is launched, one which centres as the primary interest of knowledge production, an interest in social-ecological justice and the constitution of the common good. From this vantage point, knowledge co-production and learning can be viewed as acts of commoning, which themselves constitute common goods. I draw on the work of Karin Knorr Cetina to conceptualise and frame notions of epistemic cultures and their epistemic features. Expanding notions of epistemic cultures from a post-abyssal perspective, I draw on the work of Bruno Latour and Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Latour’s distinctions between the production of ‘matters of fact’ and ‘matters of concern’ provide a way to challenge hegemonic systems of scientific knowledge production, while preserving the potential emergence of multiplicity in the context of evolving risk, thereby enabling a greater degree of situated reflexivity. Santos argues for the reclamation of all ways of knowing, including but not limited to scientific ways of knowing the world. He argues that other forms of knowledge are produced as nonexistent, and that they might be reclaimed through engaging sociologies of absences and emergences. Both authors enable a stronger analysis of knowledge production in terms of its ability to intervene into context in response to manifest risks. These three theoretical approaches are convened into an analytical framework for the study. To enact sociologies of absences and emergences, I engage two forms of immanent critique, complemented by an epistemic mapping of 50 South African citizen science projects, and an analysis of three illustrative case studies. The first critique is one of produced nonexistence, through which I consider three aspects of the general knowledge cultures within which the epistemic cultures of citizen science projects are situated. This critique makes evident the ways in which the ontological and related conceptual structures of hegemonic scientific knowledge production actively produce as nonexistent, other onto-epistemic contributions to knowledge production in response to social-ecological risks. The second critique reviews the field of peer-reviewed literature through a reading of presence and absence, with a focus on the articulation of epistemic cultures. Predictably, a key finding is that this form of scientific reporting primarily foregrounds legitimated scientifically processed knowledge, while once again producing as nonexistent, other forms of knowledges. However, there is evidence of increasing accounts of citizen science which recognise both a diversity of knowledge contributions, and epistemic, contributory and distributive justice issues as regards hegemonic forms of reporting. The epistemic mapping evidences a highly diversified field of citizen sciences, whose epistemic cultures are convened to produce distinct forms of scientifically-informed knowledges in response to diverse contexts, scales and notions of risk. The three illustrative case studies engage sociologies of absences and emergences, with particular focus on articulating the ecologies of knowledges evidenced in project documentation, including both official and unofficial accounts of epistemic activity. This analysis highlights the significant contributions of diverse forms of knowledges, including scientific, situated, embodied, governance, indigenous, spiritual and relational knowledges, and the ways in which these knowledge are convened to respond to specific configurations of risk. It once again highlights issues of epistemic, contributory and distributive justice, and makes evident the need for stronger integrity in processes of producing and reporting common knowledges. The case studies also illustrate the increased effectiveness of leveraging an ecology of knowledges (in contrast to a monoculture of scientific knowledge) in response to situated risks, including how such ecologies have a tendency to be generative and enable multiple forms of intervention into structures and applied contexts of intervention. In response to the collective research findings, a think-piece on rigour-as-integrity is offered as a contribution to commoning, in response to social-ecological risk. The piece draws together a postabyssal system of rigour intended to strengthen knowledge production in ways which actively centre forms of justice and commoning. ve potential in arts-based environmental learning with a focus on water pedagogy. The study took place over a period of four years, where approximately 40 school pupils between the ages of 10 and 17 years-old were engaged in participatory arts-based inquiries into water located across unequal neighbourhoods in Cape Town, South Africa. Educators, school learners, citizens and decision-makers hold different historical, cultural, political and spiritual perspectives on water. These play a role in shaping what is termed in this research the ‘hydro-social cycle’. Yet, due to dominant ideas of what counts as knowing and truth, educators in educational settings struggle to account for the complexity of water, limiting educational encounters to a partial knowing leading mostly to limited unimaginative framings of problems and solutions. My focus on transformative potential in learning is derived from a concern for how environmental education encounters and the sense-making they enable, are infused by socio-economic, political, and historical elements, specifically colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacist racism. The connections between the multiple layers of capitalist crisis and the ever-urgent environmental crisis are not adequately made in mainstream forms of water education. The research explores how arts-based pedagogy could enable a productive meeting of critical environmental education with ecological literacies. Within this positioning, transformative potential considers how educational engagements position questions about water within the social life of participants/learners and inform learning that leads to fuller and more nuanced greater knowledge. Theoretically, I work with an interrogation of critical education theory, underlaboured by critical realism which enabled me to rigorously consider how claims to knowing are shaped by their accompanying assumptions of what is real. Drawing on recent debates in critical education theory, I resist the notion of critique as ideology and engage instead in the craftsmanship of contextual and responsive inquiry practice. This has enabled me to articulate processes and relationships in water education encounters with meaningful understandings of the effects of simultaneous crises rooted in racial capitalism and environmental crisis. My methodological approach is arts-based educational research with a directive to reflect upon educational encounters in an integrated way. It includes two parts informing the facilitation and analysis of open-ended learning processes. One component was arts-based inquiry practice developed for exploring complexity, drawing on the thinking of Norris (2009, 2011) and Finley (2016, 2017). The second part holds reflective space for these encounters guided by the practice of pedagogical narration inspired by the Reggio Amelia approach, demonstrated by Pacini-Ketchabaw, Nxumalo, Kocher, Elliot and Sanchez (2014). Clarifying the intellectual work of a responsive educator-researcher, pedagogical narration brings multiple theoretical lenses into conversation with emergent dimensions of educational process. In practice, in order to transgress the dominance of colonial white supremacist knowledge frames of water, I needed to be curious, to be confounded, to expect the unexpected in the educational encounters with participants and this mirroring of practice was emulated by the participants as they followed their own questions about water in Mzansi (South Africa). In our work together we came up against assumptions we had previously not questioned as individuals. Together we explored the implications of this by, for example, questioning who is responsible for saving water. These explorations required bringing together science knowledge and everyday knowledge at multiple scales: the household, catchment, government and global. It required us to be critical of how language and images are mobilized in public communication and school curriculums; for example, representations of water are infused with history and power in a way that impacts how we know and teach about water. The transformative potential of this pedagogical space is generated through acts of creative expression which are seen as acts of absenting absence, for example exhibiting through play how water use in the household interconnects with gender and age relationships. As such, creative expression through multiple mediums or more-than-text enables a deeper understanding of water as well as openings for interdisciplinary engagement with learning about water. My research found that in bringing together the contributions of critical education and environmental education in practice, two shifts are needed: environmental educators need to view ecological literacy as inseparable from the social and political. The knowledge that is shared about water in the classroom has social and political implications. On the other hand, critical educators need to better locate justice concerns in the material and ecological world at scale. Arts-based inquiry, as a kind of scaffolding for pedagogical process, has the potential to enable these shifts by opening up fixed analytical frames. Making these shifts requires a reflective practice on the part of the educator to navigate the inherited blind spots in environmental learning and critical education, such as dualities. One way to do this is for the educator to identify absences, as articulated in the Critical Realist tradition, and consider how these absences might be absented. This differs from a simplistic process of critique in the possibilities it opens up for collaboration between different schools of thought rather than further polarisation and alienation between educators and knowledge keepers on social ecologies. These insights have relevance for many sites of environmental education practice, such as natural science lecturers, school teachers or community activists. It is knowledge-learning work emergent from and responsive to complex ecological crisis, which requires everyone to rethink and open up to new ways of being, seeing and doing around these issues. The transformative potential of this work is that the thinking and transforming at all scales can be catalysed and grounded through the arts based educational encounters with the participants. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-08
- Authors: Vallabh, Priya
- Date: 2022-04-08
- Subjects: Science Citizen participation , Decolonization , Social epistemology , Hegemony , Common good , Traditional ecological knowledge , Ethnoscience
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/290671 , vital:56773 , DOI 10.21504/10962/290671
- Description: In this study I explore and explain transformatiThe citizen sciences convene complex and reflexive ecologies of knowledges in response to a range of social-ecological risks. Their epistemic cultures seem to be assembled in ways which increase potential mobilisation of the common knowledges being produced, thereby producing knowledges in forms that are more strongly aligned with a range of implementation strategies. However, much of such processes of knowledge production have been ‘cleaned out’ of official accounts through scientifically hegemonic systems of legitimation, deepening hegemonically-entrenched systems of epistemic, contributory and distributive injustices, and undermining the potential for stronger enactments of participatory and radical democracies. The engagement of sociologies of absences and emergences in this study evidence these epistemic insights, thereby evidencing an expansive post-abyssal (re)stor(y)ing of the citizen sciences. Through this research, I consider knowledge production as ‘commoning', towards the constitution of the common good. To date, most accounts of knowledge production within citizen science projects primarily focus on scientific processes of knowledge production and legitimation. Such accounts neglect the ecologies of diverse knowledges through which knowledge is being collaboratively produced, the forms of learning that occur, or the ways in which such ecologies are mobilised in response to specific socialecological risks. To better understand the ways in which citizen science projects build risk-responsive common knowledge, I bring a focus to the diversity of epistemic cultures convened, speaking to this gap. My primary research question is: How do the epistemic cultures within citizen science projects enable commoning in response to social-ecological risk? To begin, I establish a particular vantage point from which the remainder of the thesis is launched, one which centres as the primary interest of knowledge production, an interest in social-ecological justice and the constitution of the common good. From this vantage point, knowledge co-production and learning can be viewed as acts of commoning, which themselves constitute common goods. I draw on the work of Karin Knorr Cetina to conceptualise and frame notions of epistemic cultures and their epistemic features. Expanding notions of epistemic cultures from a post-abyssal perspective, I draw on the work of Bruno Latour and Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Latour’s distinctions between the production of ‘matters of fact’ and ‘matters of concern’ provide a way to challenge hegemonic systems of scientific knowledge production, while preserving the potential emergence of multiplicity in the context of evolving risk, thereby enabling a greater degree of situated reflexivity. Santos argues for the reclamation of all ways of knowing, including but not limited to scientific ways of knowing the world. He argues that other forms of knowledge are produced as nonexistent, and that they might be reclaimed through engaging sociologies of absences and emergences. Both authors enable a stronger analysis of knowledge production in terms of its ability to intervene into context in response to manifest risks. These three theoretical approaches are convened into an analytical framework for the study. To enact sociologies of absences and emergences, I engage two forms of immanent critique, complemented by an epistemic mapping of 50 South African citizen science projects, and an analysis of three illustrative case studies. The first critique is one of produced nonexistence, through which I consider three aspects of the general knowledge cultures within which the epistemic cultures of citizen science projects are situated. This critique makes evident the ways in which the ontological and related conceptual structures of hegemonic scientific knowledge production actively produce as nonexistent, other onto-epistemic contributions to knowledge production in response to social-ecological risks. The second critique reviews the field of peer-reviewed literature through a reading of presence and absence, with a focus on the articulation of epistemic cultures. Predictably, a key finding is that this form of scientific reporting primarily foregrounds legitimated scientifically processed knowledge, while once again producing as nonexistent, other forms of knowledges. However, there is evidence of increasing accounts of citizen science which recognise both a diversity of knowledge contributions, and epistemic, contributory and distributive justice issues as regards hegemonic forms of reporting. The epistemic mapping evidences a highly diversified field of citizen sciences, whose epistemic cultures are convened to produce distinct forms of scientifically-informed knowledges in response to diverse contexts, scales and notions of risk. The three illustrative case studies engage sociologies of absences and emergences, with particular focus on articulating the ecologies of knowledges evidenced in project documentation, including both official and unofficial accounts of epistemic activity. This analysis highlights the significant contributions of diverse forms of knowledges, including scientific, situated, embodied, governance, indigenous, spiritual and relational knowledges, and the ways in which these knowledge are convened to respond to specific configurations of risk. It once again highlights issues of epistemic, contributory and distributive justice, and makes evident the need for stronger integrity in processes of producing and reporting common knowledges. The case studies also illustrate the increased effectiveness of leveraging an ecology of knowledges (in contrast to a monoculture of scientific knowledge) in response to situated risks, including how such ecologies have a tendency to be generative and enable multiple forms of intervention into structures and applied contexts of intervention. In response to the collective research findings, a think-piece on rigour-as-integrity is offered as a contribution to commoning, in response to social-ecological risk. The piece draws together a postabyssal system of rigour intended to strengthen knowledge production in ways which actively centre forms of justice and commoning. ve potential in arts-based environmental learning with a focus on water pedagogy. The study took place over a period of four years, where approximately 40 school pupils between the ages of 10 and 17 years-old were engaged in participatory arts-based inquiries into water located across unequal neighbourhoods in Cape Town, South Africa. Educators, school learners, citizens and decision-makers hold different historical, cultural, political and spiritual perspectives on water. These play a role in shaping what is termed in this research the ‘hydro-social cycle’. Yet, due to dominant ideas of what counts as knowing and truth, educators in educational settings struggle to account for the complexity of water, limiting educational encounters to a partial knowing leading mostly to limited unimaginative framings of problems and solutions. My focus on transformative potential in learning is derived from a concern for how environmental education encounters and the sense-making they enable, are infused by socio-economic, political, and historical elements, specifically colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacist racism. The connections between the multiple layers of capitalist crisis and the ever-urgent environmental crisis are not adequately made in mainstream forms of water education. The research explores how arts-based pedagogy could enable a productive meeting of critical environmental education with ecological literacies. Within this positioning, transformative potential considers how educational engagements position questions about water within the social life of participants/learners and inform learning that leads to fuller and more nuanced greater knowledge. Theoretically, I work with an interrogation of critical education theory, underlaboured by critical realism which enabled me to rigorously consider how claims to knowing are shaped by their accompanying assumptions of what is real. Drawing on recent debates in critical education theory, I resist the notion of critique as ideology and engage instead in the craftsmanship of contextual and responsive inquiry practice. This has enabled me to articulate processes and relationships in water education encounters with meaningful understandings of the effects of simultaneous crises rooted in racial capitalism and environmental crisis. My methodological approach is arts-based educational research with a directive to reflect upon educational encounters in an integrated way. It includes two parts informing the facilitation and analysis of open-ended learning processes. One component was arts-based inquiry practice developed for exploring complexity, drawing on the thinking of Norris (2009, 2011) and Finley (2016, 2017). The second part holds reflective space for these encounters guided by the practice of pedagogical narration inspired by the Reggio Amelia approach, demonstrated by Pacini-Ketchabaw, Nxumalo, Kocher, Elliot and Sanchez (2014). Clarifying the intellectual work of a responsive educator-researcher, pedagogical narration brings multiple theoretical lenses into conversation with emergent dimensions of educational process. In practice, in order to transgress the dominance of colonial white supremacist knowledge frames of water, I needed to be curious, to be confounded, to expect the unexpected in the educational encounters with participants and this mirroring of practice was emulated by the participants as they followed their own questions about water in Mzansi (South Africa). In our work together we came up against assumptions we had previously not questioned as individuals. Together we explored the implications of this by, for example, questioning who is responsible for saving water. These explorations required bringing together science knowledge and everyday knowledge at multiple scales: the household, catchment, government and global. It required us to be critical of how language and images are mobilized in public communication and school curriculums; for example, representations of water are infused with history and power in a way that impacts how we know and teach about water. The transformative potential of this pedagogical space is generated through acts of creative expression which are seen as acts of absenting absence, for example exhibiting through play how water use in the household interconnects with gender and age relationships. As such, creative expression through multiple mediums or more-than-text enables a deeper understanding of water as well as openings for interdisciplinary engagement with learning about water. My research found that in bringing together the contributions of critical education and environmental education in practice, two shifts are needed: environmental educators need to view ecological literacy as inseparable from the social and political. The knowledge that is shared about water in the classroom has social and political implications. On the other hand, critical educators need to better locate justice concerns in the material and ecological world at scale. Arts-based inquiry, as a kind of scaffolding for pedagogical process, has the potential to enable these shifts by opening up fixed analytical frames. Making these shifts requires a reflective practice on the part of the educator to navigate the inherited blind spots in environmental learning and critical education, such as dualities. One way to do this is for the educator to identify absences, as articulated in the Critical Realist tradition, and consider how these absences might be absented. This differs from a simplistic process of critique in the possibilities it opens up for collaboration between different schools of thought rather than further polarisation and alienation between educators and knowledge keepers on social ecologies. These insights have relevance for many sites of environmental education practice, such as natural science lecturers, school teachers or community activists. It is knowledge-learning work emergent from and responsive to complex ecological crisis, which requires everyone to rethink and open up to new ways of being, seeing and doing around these issues. The transformative potential of this work is that the thinking and transforming at all scales can be catalysed and grounded through the arts based educational encounters with the participants. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-08
Visualisation processes in teaching patterns and their generalisation: perceptions and experiences from senior phase mathematics teachers
- Authors: Chatima, Simon
- Date: 2022-04-08
- Subjects: Visual learning South Africa Eastern Cape , Mathematics Study and teaching (Secondary) South Africa Eastern Cape , Mathematics teachers South Africa Eastern Cape Attitudes , Sequences (Mathematics) Study and teaching (Secondary) South Africa Eastern Cape , Constructivism (Education) South Africa Eastern Cape , Mathematics teachers In-service training South Africa Eastern Cape , VIPRO MATHS Project
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232936 , vital:50039
- Description: This study investigated how senior phase mathematics teachers used visualisation approaches to teach patterns and their generalisation as a result of an intervention programme. This project is an integral component of the VIPRO MATHS Project and one of a number of post-graduate research projects which has a particular focus on visualisation processes in mathematics education in the Southern African region. This case study of Senior Phase mathematics teachers in the Chris Hani West District (CHW) in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa used a social constructivist theory. The study is grounded within an interpretive paradigm explanatory qualitative method design. It surveyed thirty-seven Senior Phase mathematics teachers from schools in the CHW district to get an idea of how teachers teach patterns and their generalisation, prior to an intervention process. After the survey, nine teachers were purposively selected to take part in an intervention programme. They were then observed (teaching) and interviewed to get their perceptions about what factors enable and/or constrain the teaching of patterns and their generalisation when visualisation approaches were used. The data from the survey questionnaire responses, the lesson observations and the interviews were analysed qualitatively. The findings from the survey questionnaire responses revealed that teachers in CHW district value the use of visualisation approaches, although they used visuals to teach patterns in a way that lacked depth, skill and rigor prior to the intervention. Challenges such as difficulty in keeping abreast with the prescribed syllabus, the lack of resources, time constraints, and the limited knowledge of algebra learners have for successfully transferring pictorial representations to symbolic presentations, emerged from the survey data. This necessitated the need for an intervention which focused on the use of a variety of visual strategies and tools to teach patterns and their generalisation effectively. Data from lesson observations showed that all observed participant teachers used visuals to generate image- related questions and created platforms for lively classroom discussions. The teachers used the generated questions to build on learners’ prior knowledge and to promote learner understanding of pattern dynamics that stem from pictorial representations. The data from the interviews revealed that teachers’ perceptions had drastically changed after the intervention. This was because they were now equipped and empowered to effectively make use of visual strategies that enabled them to: build on learners’ prior knowledge, to manipulate visuals for the purpose of prompting learning, develop cognitive perception in learners, cultivate learner innovation and originality and enhance problem solving techniques. This study concludes that the use of visuals enhanced conceptual teaching of patterns and their generalisation in the observed participants. This has the potential to provide mathematics education researchers and curriculum developers with a strong basis to include visualisation processes and strategies into the design of policy documents and to initiate further research efforts. The implications for the teachers are that learners need to be taught ways to create and interpret visual representations in order to understand the dynamics of transferring a pictorial pattern to its resultant symbolic representation expressing pattern regularity. It is also hoped that the results of this study will be utilised by mathematics subject advisers and teacher training institutions to improve the teaching of patterns and their generalisation. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-08
- Authors: Chatima, Simon
- Date: 2022-04-08
- Subjects: Visual learning South Africa Eastern Cape , Mathematics Study and teaching (Secondary) South Africa Eastern Cape , Mathematics teachers South Africa Eastern Cape Attitudes , Sequences (Mathematics) Study and teaching (Secondary) South Africa Eastern Cape , Constructivism (Education) South Africa Eastern Cape , Mathematics teachers In-service training South Africa Eastern Cape , VIPRO MATHS Project
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232936 , vital:50039
- Description: This study investigated how senior phase mathematics teachers used visualisation approaches to teach patterns and their generalisation as a result of an intervention programme. This project is an integral component of the VIPRO MATHS Project and one of a number of post-graduate research projects which has a particular focus on visualisation processes in mathematics education in the Southern African region. This case study of Senior Phase mathematics teachers in the Chris Hani West District (CHW) in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa used a social constructivist theory. The study is grounded within an interpretive paradigm explanatory qualitative method design. It surveyed thirty-seven Senior Phase mathematics teachers from schools in the CHW district to get an idea of how teachers teach patterns and their generalisation, prior to an intervention process. After the survey, nine teachers were purposively selected to take part in an intervention programme. They were then observed (teaching) and interviewed to get their perceptions about what factors enable and/or constrain the teaching of patterns and their generalisation when visualisation approaches were used. The data from the survey questionnaire responses, the lesson observations and the interviews were analysed qualitatively. The findings from the survey questionnaire responses revealed that teachers in CHW district value the use of visualisation approaches, although they used visuals to teach patterns in a way that lacked depth, skill and rigor prior to the intervention. Challenges such as difficulty in keeping abreast with the prescribed syllabus, the lack of resources, time constraints, and the limited knowledge of algebra learners have for successfully transferring pictorial representations to symbolic presentations, emerged from the survey data. This necessitated the need for an intervention which focused on the use of a variety of visual strategies and tools to teach patterns and their generalisation effectively. Data from lesson observations showed that all observed participant teachers used visuals to generate image- related questions and created platforms for lively classroom discussions. The teachers used the generated questions to build on learners’ prior knowledge and to promote learner understanding of pattern dynamics that stem from pictorial representations. The data from the interviews revealed that teachers’ perceptions had drastically changed after the intervention. This was because they were now equipped and empowered to effectively make use of visual strategies that enabled them to: build on learners’ prior knowledge, to manipulate visuals for the purpose of prompting learning, develop cognitive perception in learners, cultivate learner innovation and originality and enhance problem solving techniques. This study concludes that the use of visuals enhanced conceptual teaching of patterns and their generalisation in the observed participants. This has the potential to provide mathematics education researchers and curriculum developers with a strong basis to include visualisation processes and strategies into the design of policy documents and to initiate further research efforts. The implications for the teachers are that learners need to be taught ways to create and interpret visual representations in order to understand the dynamics of transferring a pictorial pattern to its resultant symbolic representation expressing pattern regularity. It is also hoped that the results of this study will be utilised by mathematics subject advisers and teacher training institutions to improve the teaching of patterns and their generalisation. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-08
A biography on inkosi Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli as an African intellectual
- Mngadi, Samkelo Ntobeko Vukani
- Authors: Mngadi, Samkelo Ntobeko Vukani
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Luthuli, A J (Albert John), 1898-1967 , Luthuli, A J (Albert John), 1898-1967 Political and social views , Africans Intellectual life , South Africa History , South Africa Politics and government , African National Congress Biography , Apartheid South Africa , Political activists South Africa Biography , Intellectuals Political activity South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294493 , vital:57226
- Description: [Excerpt taken from Introduction] The purpose of this study is to take a look at one of these African leaders, inkosi Albert Luthuli through a biographical lens to assess whether he should be recognised as an African intellectual. Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu states that inkosi Luthuli is recognised as the father of South Africa’s non-racialism. He used his moral authority in a historic fashion to influence the liberation movement to adopt non-violent resistance. During his time as President-General, he became the beacon of non-violent resistance. As the president of the liberation organisation, he delivered speeches that steered the African National Congress (ANC) and the liberation movement when the State escalated its oppression against Africans. The State retaliated by deposing him as an elected Chief, imprisoned him, imposed multiple bans on him in attempts to silence him. His intellect proved to be a threat to the State. He spoke out boldly against the apartheid state and advocated for chiefs, African people, African women, sugar farmers, and all oppressed racial groups. Inkosi Luthuli used his speeches to deliver political concepts like non-racialism, multiracialism, African nationalism and democracy into the public space. He cemented ANC’s cooperation policy that created the environment for the existence of the Congress Alliance that produced the Freedom Charter. He spoke out against the oppression of not just South Africans but Africa and all oppressed groups internationally. He illustrated that he possessed geopolitics that would gain the attention of the world. He illustrated his geopolitics through his internationalism philosophy gained the international community’s attention. Inkosi Luthuli was revered and respected by his Groutville community, the African community, South Africans of all racial groups and the international community. His impact can be seen through him being the first African-born Nobel Peace Prize recipient. He pushed for the international community to place economic sanctions and believed that international sanctions were the appropriate non-violent method the global community could get involved in fighting apartheid.5 The purpose of this study will be to explore how a Christian Zulu Chief’s intellectual thinking was able to move South Africa towards a multiracial democracy using non-violent resistance as a strategy to gain Africa and the world’s attention—looking at him from the vantage point of being an African intellectual. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, History, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Mngadi, Samkelo Ntobeko Vukani
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Luthuli, A J (Albert John), 1898-1967 , Luthuli, A J (Albert John), 1898-1967 Political and social views , Africans Intellectual life , South Africa History , South Africa Politics and government , African National Congress Biography , Apartheid South Africa , Political activists South Africa Biography , Intellectuals Political activity South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294493 , vital:57226
- Description: [Excerpt taken from Introduction] The purpose of this study is to take a look at one of these African leaders, inkosi Albert Luthuli through a biographical lens to assess whether he should be recognised as an African intellectual. Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu states that inkosi Luthuli is recognised as the father of South Africa’s non-racialism. He used his moral authority in a historic fashion to influence the liberation movement to adopt non-violent resistance. During his time as President-General, he became the beacon of non-violent resistance. As the president of the liberation organisation, he delivered speeches that steered the African National Congress (ANC) and the liberation movement when the State escalated its oppression against Africans. The State retaliated by deposing him as an elected Chief, imprisoned him, imposed multiple bans on him in attempts to silence him. His intellect proved to be a threat to the State. He spoke out boldly against the apartheid state and advocated for chiefs, African people, African women, sugar farmers, and all oppressed racial groups. Inkosi Luthuli used his speeches to deliver political concepts like non-racialism, multiracialism, African nationalism and democracy into the public space. He cemented ANC’s cooperation policy that created the environment for the existence of the Congress Alliance that produced the Freedom Charter. He spoke out against the oppression of not just South Africans but Africa and all oppressed groups internationally. He illustrated that he possessed geopolitics that would gain the attention of the world. He illustrated his geopolitics through his internationalism philosophy gained the international community’s attention. Inkosi Luthuli was revered and respected by his Groutville community, the African community, South Africans of all racial groups and the international community. His impact can be seen through him being the first African-born Nobel Peace Prize recipient. He pushed for the international community to place economic sanctions and believed that international sanctions were the appropriate non-violent method the global community could get involved in fighting apartheid.5 The purpose of this study will be to explore how a Christian Zulu Chief’s intellectual thinking was able to move South Africa towards a multiracial democracy using non-violent resistance as a strategy to gain Africa and the world’s attention—looking at him from the vantage point of being an African intellectual. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, History, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Alcohol use among women attending antenatal care in Buffalo City, Eastern Cape
- Authors: Bredenkamp, Petrus Johannes
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/234358 , vital:50188
- Description: Alcohol use during pregnancy is known to cause neurodevelopmental disorders in offspring, known as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). High prevalence of FASD has been observed in certain parts South Africa, but many areas of the country remain unstudied, and factors contributing to drinking among pregnant women are poorly understood. This study surveyed 1099 women attending antenatal care at public primary healthcare facilities in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Area in the Eastern Cape. Data was collected using the Alcohol Use Identification Test, a 10-item self-report measure of drinking behaviour in isiXhosa, English, and Afrikaans. Factors associated with alcohol use, risky drinking, binge drinking, and hazardous/harmful drinking were identified using logistic regression. A minority of the sample reported alcohol use (64%). Among those reporting alcohol use, most reported occasional binge drinking (63%) and met criteria for risky drinking (59%) and hazardous/harmful drinking (52%). Living with a regular drinker was significantly associated with alcohol use (OR 1.98, 95% CI 1.51 – 2.58), risky drinking (OR 2.03, 95% CI 1.49 – 2.76), binge drinking (OR 2.21, 95% CI 1.64 – 2.97), and hazardous/harmful drinking (OR 2.0, 95% CI 1.41 – 2.99). However, women who were married/cohabiting were less likely to report alcohol use (OR .71, 95% CI .53 - .95). Experiencing intimate partner violence during the current pregnancy was associated with alcohol use (OR 2.42, 95% CI 1.38 – 4.27) and hazardous/harmful drinking (OR 2.62, 95% CI 1.32 – 5.22). In this study, women who identified as Coloured were more likely to report alcohol use than Women who identified as African (OR 2.74, 95% CI 1.4 – 5.36). These findings simultaneously provide evidence of problematic drinking among pregnant women in a previously understudied area and show that external factors affect women’s drinking behaviour during pregnancy. Interventions aimed at reducing the incidence of FASD should consider alcohol use by pregnant women in the context of their lived experiences. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Psychology, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Bredenkamp, Petrus Johannes
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/234358 , vital:50188
- Description: Alcohol use during pregnancy is known to cause neurodevelopmental disorders in offspring, known as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). High prevalence of FASD has been observed in certain parts South Africa, but many areas of the country remain unstudied, and factors contributing to drinking among pregnant women are poorly understood. This study surveyed 1099 women attending antenatal care at public primary healthcare facilities in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Area in the Eastern Cape. Data was collected using the Alcohol Use Identification Test, a 10-item self-report measure of drinking behaviour in isiXhosa, English, and Afrikaans. Factors associated with alcohol use, risky drinking, binge drinking, and hazardous/harmful drinking were identified using logistic regression. A minority of the sample reported alcohol use (64%). Among those reporting alcohol use, most reported occasional binge drinking (63%) and met criteria for risky drinking (59%) and hazardous/harmful drinking (52%). Living with a regular drinker was significantly associated with alcohol use (OR 1.98, 95% CI 1.51 – 2.58), risky drinking (OR 2.03, 95% CI 1.49 – 2.76), binge drinking (OR 2.21, 95% CI 1.64 – 2.97), and hazardous/harmful drinking (OR 2.0, 95% CI 1.41 – 2.99). However, women who were married/cohabiting were less likely to report alcohol use (OR .71, 95% CI .53 - .95). Experiencing intimate partner violence during the current pregnancy was associated with alcohol use (OR 2.42, 95% CI 1.38 – 4.27) and hazardous/harmful drinking (OR 2.62, 95% CI 1.32 – 5.22). In this study, women who identified as Coloured were more likely to report alcohol use than Women who identified as African (OR 2.74, 95% CI 1.4 – 5.36). These findings simultaneously provide evidence of problematic drinking among pregnant women in a previously understudied area and show that external factors affect women’s drinking behaviour during pregnancy. Interventions aimed at reducing the incidence of FASD should consider alcohol use by pregnant women in the context of their lived experiences. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Psychology, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Alien crosstalk
- Stuart-Watson, Andrew Joseph
- Authors: Stuart-Watson, Andrew Joseph
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , Short stories, South African (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) 21st century , American fiction History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294515 , vital:57228
- Description: Alien Crosstalk , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Stuart-Watson, Andrew Joseph
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , Short stories, South African (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) 21st century , American fiction History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294515 , vital:57228
- Description: Alien Crosstalk , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Along the river that flowed south
- Authors: Mohlomi, Teboho Samson
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/234195 , vital:50171
- Description: Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Mohlomi, Teboho Samson
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/234195 , vital:50171
- Description: Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
An investigation of traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) in the SANAE HF radar data
- Authors: Atilaw, Tsige Yared
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Ionospheric storms Antarctica , Radar Antarctica , Range time-intensity (RTI) , South African National Antarctic Expedition (SANAE) , Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN)
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232377 , vital:49986 , DOI 10.21504/10962/232377
- Description: This thesis aims to study the characteristics of traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) as identified in the radar data of the South African National Antarctic Expedition (SANAE) Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) radar located in Antarctica. For this project, 22 TIDs were identified from visual inspection of range time-intensity (RTI) plots of backscattered power and Doppler velocity parameters of the SANAE radar between 2005âAS2015. These events were studied to determine their characteristics and driving mechanisms. Where good quality data were available, the SANAE HF radar data were supplemented by Halley radar data, which has large area of overlapping field of view (FOV) with the SANAE radar, and also by GPS TEC data. This provided a multi-instrument data analysis of some TID events. Different spectral analysis methods, namely the multitaper method (MTM), Fast Fourier transform (FFT) and the Lomb-Scargle periodogram were used to obtain spectral information of the observed waves. The advantage of using multiple windowing in MTM over the traditional windowing method was illustrated using one of the TID events. In addition, the analytic signal of the wave from the MTM method was used to estimate the instantaneous phase velocity and propagation azimuth of the wave, which was able to track the change in the characteristics of the medium-scale TID (MSTID) efficiently throughout the duration of the event. This is a clear advantage over other windowing techniques. The energy contribution by this MSTID through Joule heating was estimated over the region where spectral analysis of both SANAE and Halley data showed it to be present. The majority of the TIDs (65.4%) could be classified as MSTIDs with periods of 20–60 minutes, velocities of 50–333 ms1 and wavelengths of 129–833 km. The TID occurrence rate was high around the March equinox with 12 out of the 16 event days being during March–May. March had a particularly high number of occurrences of TIDs (46%). The majority of the TIDs observed during this month propagated northward or southeastward. In terms of prevailing geomagnetic conditions, 6 out of 16 event days were geomagnetically quiet, while 10 occurred during geomagnetic storms and substorms. During quiet conditions, TIDs could be linked to Es and polarised electric fields in 2 of these events. The other quiet time events could not be related to Es instability and polarised electric field either because their exact propagation direction could not be determined or data quality from the Es region scatter was too poor to perform spectral analysis. The storm-/substorm-related TIDs are possibly generated through Joule heating, the Lorentz force and energetic particle precipitation. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Science, Physics and Electronics, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Atilaw, Tsige Yared
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Ionospheric storms Antarctica , Radar Antarctica , Range time-intensity (RTI) , South African National Antarctic Expedition (SANAE) , Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN)
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232377 , vital:49986 , DOI 10.21504/10962/232377
- Description: This thesis aims to study the characteristics of traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) as identified in the radar data of the South African National Antarctic Expedition (SANAE) Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) radar located in Antarctica. For this project, 22 TIDs were identified from visual inspection of range time-intensity (RTI) plots of backscattered power and Doppler velocity parameters of the SANAE radar between 2005âAS2015. These events were studied to determine their characteristics and driving mechanisms. Where good quality data were available, the SANAE HF radar data were supplemented by Halley radar data, which has large area of overlapping field of view (FOV) with the SANAE radar, and also by GPS TEC data. This provided a multi-instrument data analysis of some TID events. Different spectral analysis methods, namely the multitaper method (MTM), Fast Fourier transform (FFT) and the Lomb-Scargle periodogram were used to obtain spectral information of the observed waves. The advantage of using multiple windowing in MTM over the traditional windowing method was illustrated using one of the TID events. In addition, the analytic signal of the wave from the MTM method was used to estimate the instantaneous phase velocity and propagation azimuth of the wave, which was able to track the change in the characteristics of the medium-scale TID (MSTID) efficiently throughout the duration of the event. This is a clear advantage over other windowing techniques. The energy contribution by this MSTID through Joule heating was estimated over the region where spectral analysis of both SANAE and Halley data showed it to be present. The majority of the TIDs (65.4%) could be classified as MSTIDs with periods of 20–60 minutes, velocities of 50–333 ms1 and wavelengths of 129–833 km. The TID occurrence rate was high around the March equinox with 12 out of the 16 event days being during March–May. March had a particularly high number of occurrences of TIDs (46%). The majority of the TIDs observed during this month propagated northward or southeastward. In terms of prevailing geomagnetic conditions, 6 out of 16 event days were geomagnetically quiet, while 10 occurred during geomagnetic storms and substorms. During quiet conditions, TIDs could be linked to Es and polarised electric fields in 2 of these events. The other quiet time events could not be related to Es instability and polarised electric field either because their exact propagation direction could not be determined or data quality from the Es region scatter was too poor to perform spectral analysis. The storm-/substorm-related TIDs are possibly generated through Joule heating, the Lorentz force and energetic particle precipitation. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Science, Physics and Electronics, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Diski 9 Nine and Other Stories (and Things)
- Authors: Mahlabe, Stoffel Seshia
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , South African essays (English) 21st century , Short stories, South African (English) 21st century , Portuguese fiction History and criticism , African literature (English) History and criticism , Ghanaian fiction (English) History and criticism , South African fiction (English) History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232283 , vital:49978
- Description: My thesis is a collection of short stories that reflects the everyday lives of ordinary people. They touch on issues of morality within the current context, in such a way as to both entertain and educate. As a child I learned to imitate the wildly comical, sometimes dark dinoonwane and dithamalakwane stories I heard from elders. In my thesis, I draw on Amos Tutuola’s exuberant style of retelling Yoruba folktales and balance this with the languid candour of Jose Saramago’s Blindness. Stories such as Bessora’s The Milka Cow, and Micah Dean Hicks’s Crawfish Noon have impressed me deeply for their incredible, wild narrative strategies that still, however, emulate realism. Dambudzo Marechera and Can Themba are also present influences. Both have sprinklings of erudition in their writing, but in an earthy kind of way. Their writing contains transliterations that have a ring of the vernacular languages, an idiom that Africanises the English language. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Mahlabe, Stoffel Seshia
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , South African essays (English) 21st century , Short stories, South African (English) 21st century , Portuguese fiction History and criticism , African literature (English) History and criticism , Ghanaian fiction (English) History and criticism , South African fiction (English) History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232283 , vital:49978
- Description: My thesis is a collection of short stories that reflects the everyday lives of ordinary people. They touch on issues of morality within the current context, in such a way as to both entertain and educate. As a child I learned to imitate the wildly comical, sometimes dark dinoonwane and dithamalakwane stories I heard from elders. In my thesis, I draw on Amos Tutuola’s exuberant style of retelling Yoruba folktales and balance this with the languid candour of Jose Saramago’s Blindness. Stories such as Bessora’s The Milka Cow, and Micah Dean Hicks’s Crawfish Noon have impressed me deeply for their incredible, wild narrative strategies that still, however, emulate realism. Dambudzo Marechera and Can Themba are also present influences. Both have sprinklings of erudition in their writing, but in an earthy kind of way. Their writing contains transliterations that have a ring of the vernacular languages, an idiom that Africanises the English language. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Exploring black South African men’s lived experiences of being fathered
- Authors: Rasebitse, Karabo
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Fatherhood South Africa , Fathers and sons South Africa Psychological aspects , Masculinity Social aspects South Africa , Hegemony South Africa , Social constructionism South Africa , Culture , Men, Black Attitudes South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294504 , vital:57227
- Description: There is a lack of research studies in South Africa that explore young men’s lived experiences of being fathered. The aim of this study focused on exploring how Black South African men construct and understand their own lived experiences of being fathered by their biological father. This research study is situated within a social constructionism methodology and theoretical framework. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with young men between the ages of 18-24. Data were analysed using thematic analysis as a way of analysing participants’ stories. Three central themes with subthemes emerged. The main themes regarded the father behaviour, fatherly roles and participants’ constructions of fatherhood. The study argues that fatherhood is a social construct based on participants’ lived experiences. Participants in this research still view fatherhood from cultural discourses, such as the provider/protector and a moral guider/role to construct fatherhood. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Psychology, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Rasebitse, Karabo
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Fatherhood South Africa , Fathers and sons South Africa Psychological aspects , Masculinity Social aspects South Africa , Hegemony South Africa , Social constructionism South Africa , Culture , Men, Black Attitudes South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294504 , vital:57227
- Description: There is a lack of research studies in South Africa that explore young men’s lived experiences of being fathered. The aim of this study focused on exploring how Black South African men construct and understand their own lived experiences of being fathered by their biological father. This research study is situated within a social constructionism methodology and theoretical framework. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with young men between the ages of 18-24. Data were analysed using thematic analysis as a way of analysing participants’ stories. Three central themes with subthemes emerged. The main themes regarded the father behaviour, fatherly roles and participants’ constructions of fatherhood. The study argues that fatherhood is a social construct based on participants’ lived experiences. Participants in this research still view fatherhood from cultural discourses, such as the provider/protector and a moral guider/role to construct fatherhood. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Psychology, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Exploring structures and beliefs underlying textbook praxis in German foreign language courses at a South African university – a social realist perspective
- Authors: Engelbrecht, Natasha
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: German language Study and teaching (Higher) English speakers , Curriculum change South Africa , German language Textbooks History and criticism , Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Project) , Decolonization South Africa , Educational change South Africa , Social realism
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232657 , vital:50011 , DOI https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/232657
- Description: Commercial textbooks, aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), are prescribed in almost all undergraduate GFL courses offered at South African universities. Although providing practical relevance and quality assurance, the CEFR-level descriptors were developed for the European context. The projected relevance and appropriateness of teaching materials presently implemented in German curricula in South African higher education have been determined in Germany, not for local contexts, but for learners vaguely described as “Anfänger” (Evans, et al., 2012, p. 8) and “Erwachsene und Jugendliche ab 16 Jahren” (Hueber, 2019, p. 11), often with a focus on learning for prospective German immigrants or for the use in refugee- or immigrant integration courses. However, the textbook occupies a central position in the GFL course because of the structured grammar progression that it lends to the curriculum. The variety of resources available to lecturers (tests, worksheets, online learning platform) and students (exercises, English-German glossary, English grammar explanations) is also an asset to GFL courses. Calls for the transformation and decolonisation of higher education have prompted academic disciplines to re-evaluate the common-sense assumptions which underpin knowledge practices in their curriculum. Following a social realist perspective and an exploratory case-study approach, this study presents a critical analysis of the textbook prescribed in the German Studies 1 course at Rhodes University and student experiences of the textbook to disentangle the complex relations which cause textbook praxis and lay bare power structures and tensions in the system. , Thesis (PhD) -- Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Engelbrecht, Natasha
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: German language Study and teaching (Higher) English speakers , Curriculum change South Africa , German language Textbooks History and criticism , Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Project) , Decolonization South Africa , Educational change South Africa , Social realism
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232657 , vital:50011 , DOI https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/232657
- Description: Commercial textbooks, aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), are prescribed in almost all undergraduate GFL courses offered at South African universities. Although providing practical relevance and quality assurance, the CEFR-level descriptors were developed for the European context. The projected relevance and appropriateness of teaching materials presently implemented in German curricula in South African higher education have been determined in Germany, not for local contexts, but for learners vaguely described as “Anfänger” (Evans, et al., 2012, p. 8) and “Erwachsene und Jugendliche ab 16 Jahren” (Hueber, 2019, p. 11), often with a focus on learning for prospective German immigrants or for the use in refugee- or immigrant integration courses. However, the textbook occupies a central position in the GFL course because of the structured grammar progression that it lends to the curriculum. The variety of resources available to lecturers (tests, worksheets, online learning platform) and students (exercises, English-German glossary, English grammar explanations) is also an asset to GFL courses. Calls for the transformation and decolonisation of higher education have prompted academic disciplines to re-evaluate the common-sense assumptions which underpin knowledge practices in their curriculum. Following a social realist perspective and an exploratory case-study approach, this study presents a critical analysis of the textbook prescribed in the German Studies 1 course at Rhodes University and student experiences of the textbook to disentangle the complex relations which cause textbook praxis and lay bare power structures and tensions in the system. , Thesis (PhD) -- Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Gray
- Authors: Fouché, James De Clerque
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , Detective and mystery stories, South African (English) 21st century , South African fiction (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) 21st century , English fiction 20th century History and criticism , American fiction African American authors History and criticism , American fiction 20th century History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/292715 , vital:57009
- Description: My thesis is a crime fiction novella. I’m moved by the idea of developing feasible, relatable characters with flaws – a staple of the crime fiction genre. I also appreciate how crime serves as a platform from which to launch into human drama, the way James Ellroy does in The Black Dahlia. While my protagonist endures trials on a near Jobian scale, the narrative meditates on the consequences of crime and conflict in a satirical way. Writers like Ross Macdonald, Raymond Chandler, Flannery O’Connor, China Miéville and Derek Raymond have inspired me with their sharp imagery and unconventional characterization techniques. These techniques accelerate the ease with which a reader can step into the shoes of any given narrator. Their writing is crisp, uncluttered and uncomplicated. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Fouché, James De Clerque
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , Detective and mystery stories, South African (English) 21st century , South African fiction (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) 21st century , English fiction 20th century History and criticism , American fiction African American authors History and criticism , American fiction 20th century History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/292715 , vital:57009
- Description: My thesis is a crime fiction novella. I’m moved by the idea of developing feasible, relatable characters with flaws – a staple of the crime fiction genre. I also appreciate how crime serves as a platform from which to launch into human drama, the way James Ellroy does in The Black Dahlia. While my protagonist endures trials on a near Jobian scale, the narrative meditates on the consequences of crime and conflict in a satirical way. Writers like Ross Macdonald, Raymond Chandler, Flannery O’Connor, China Miéville and Derek Raymond have inspired me with their sharp imagery and unconventional characterization techniques. These techniques accelerate the ease with which a reader can step into the shoes of any given narrator. Their writing is crisp, uncluttered and uncomplicated. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Hiding no scars
- Authors: Mhlongo, Sanele
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , South African poetry (English) 21st century , Interpersonal relations in literature , Diaries -- Authorship , South African essays (English) 21st century , Russian poetry 20th century History and criticism , South African fiction (English) 21st century History and criticism , Greek poetry History and criticism , German poetry 20th century History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294311 , vital:57190
- Description: My thesis is a collection of free-verse narrative and prose poetry focusing on rural life and people, as well as my personal relationships. Poetry through its play with language has the ability to say things with immediacy and allows unnoticed things to acquire relevance. It gives me a framework within which to express difficult themes such as family relationships, death, solitude, and poverty. In writing these poems I have drawn on the work of Constantine P. Cavafy, particularly the poems ‘Ithaka’, ‘The City’ and ‘As Much As You Can’ which showcase his consistently simple narrative style that covers profound subjects. I have also been influenced by Paul Celan’s poetry in his collection Breathturn Into Timestead where poems such as ‘Corona’, ‘In praise of remoteness’ and ‘Twelve Years’ demonstrate how poetry can have pace through tightly controlled yet experimental structure. I have also drawn on Anna Akhmatova’s symbolic poetry, specifically the poems ‘Now the pillow’s’, ‘He loved three things, alive’ and ‘Prologue’ from the selection Anna Akhmatova: Selected Poems which has its intention the re-creation of the past in the present. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Mhlongo, Sanele
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , South African poetry (English) 21st century , Interpersonal relations in literature , Diaries -- Authorship , South African essays (English) 21st century , Russian poetry 20th century History and criticism , South African fiction (English) 21st century History and criticism , Greek poetry History and criticism , German poetry 20th century History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294311 , vital:57190
- Description: My thesis is a collection of free-verse narrative and prose poetry focusing on rural life and people, as well as my personal relationships. Poetry through its play with language has the ability to say things with immediacy and allows unnoticed things to acquire relevance. It gives me a framework within which to express difficult themes such as family relationships, death, solitude, and poverty. In writing these poems I have drawn on the work of Constantine P. Cavafy, particularly the poems ‘Ithaka’, ‘The City’ and ‘As Much As You Can’ which showcase his consistently simple narrative style that covers profound subjects. I have also been influenced by Paul Celan’s poetry in his collection Breathturn Into Timestead where poems such as ‘Corona’, ‘In praise of remoteness’ and ‘Twelve Years’ demonstrate how poetry can have pace through tightly controlled yet experimental structure. I have also drawn on Anna Akhmatova’s symbolic poetry, specifically the poems ‘Now the pillow’s’, ‘He loved three things, alive’ and ‘Prologue’ from the selection Anna Akhmatova: Selected Poems which has its intention the re-creation of the past in the present. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Individual decision-making and cooperation in freshwater fisheries management at the Somme River, northern France
- Authors: Khumalo, Brian
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Fishery management France Somme River , Fisheries France Somme River , Human ecology France Somme River , Traditional ecological knowledge France Somme River , Decision making , Experimental economics , Recreation France Somme River
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294561 , vital:57233
- Description: Are altruistic individuals more likely to cooperate when exploiting common resources? This research study asks whether or not rates of human altruistic behaviour expressed by individual recreational fishers in interpersonal contexts at the Somme River, Amiens mirror those rates of altruism expressed in collective contexts concerning local fisheries resources. In a natural resources context, altruism manifests as a willingness by fishers to incur personal cost for common-pool resource benefit. Accordingly, it is understood that altruistic behaviour reflected collectively expresses itself as cooperation. The research study takes place in Northern France with the stated objectives to: 1) observe individual fishers’ altruistic propensities in interpersonal contexts involving other fishers, 2) observe individual rates of altruistic behaviour in collective contexts involving common fisheries resources and compare with those expressed interpersonally, and 3) investigate whether or not a local (informal) management system existed in the town of Amiens to better understand if informal tenure of water space influences altruistic behaviour or not. The research design consists of two components, one quantitative and one qualitative. The former employs two economic games; a Dictators Games (DG) and a Public Good Game (PGG) in service of the first and second research objectives, and the latter employs cognitive mapping and free-listing exercises in service of the third. Here economic games stand as proxies for real-world situations involving individual (DG) and collective (PGG) decision-making whereas the exercises seek to uncover local ecological knowledge (LEK). The results found that while individual recreational fishers demonstrated lower rates of interpersonal altruism overall, in a collective setting involving local fisheries resources the rate was higher, implying a greater willingness to incur personal cost. Ecological knowledge was high among experienced fishers, yet no knowledge pertaining to parallel management and or informal rules of exclusion or resource subtraction were observed, suggesting an informal management system did not exist. The study additionally documents freshwater biodiversity, providing an index of fish species present in the river collected from the free-listing exercises, categorized into native and non-native as the latter can negatively affect trophic systems and ecosystem processes. , Thesis (MSocSci) -- Faculty of Humanities, Anthropology, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Khumalo, Brian
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Fishery management France Somme River , Fisheries France Somme River , Human ecology France Somme River , Traditional ecological knowledge France Somme River , Decision making , Experimental economics , Recreation France Somme River
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294561 , vital:57233
- Description: Are altruistic individuals more likely to cooperate when exploiting common resources? This research study asks whether or not rates of human altruistic behaviour expressed by individual recreational fishers in interpersonal contexts at the Somme River, Amiens mirror those rates of altruism expressed in collective contexts concerning local fisheries resources. In a natural resources context, altruism manifests as a willingness by fishers to incur personal cost for common-pool resource benefit. Accordingly, it is understood that altruistic behaviour reflected collectively expresses itself as cooperation. The research study takes place in Northern France with the stated objectives to: 1) observe individual fishers’ altruistic propensities in interpersonal contexts involving other fishers, 2) observe individual rates of altruistic behaviour in collective contexts involving common fisheries resources and compare with those expressed interpersonally, and 3) investigate whether or not a local (informal) management system existed in the town of Amiens to better understand if informal tenure of water space influences altruistic behaviour or not. The research design consists of two components, one quantitative and one qualitative. The former employs two economic games; a Dictators Games (DG) and a Public Good Game (PGG) in service of the first and second research objectives, and the latter employs cognitive mapping and free-listing exercises in service of the third. Here economic games stand as proxies for real-world situations involving individual (DG) and collective (PGG) decision-making whereas the exercises seek to uncover local ecological knowledge (LEK). The results found that while individual recreational fishers demonstrated lower rates of interpersonal altruism overall, in a collective setting involving local fisheries resources the rate was higher, implying a greater willingness to incur personal cost. Ecological knowledge was high among experienced fishers, yet no knowledge pertaining to parallel management and or informal rules of exclusion or resource subtraction were observed, suggesting an informal management system did not exist. The study additionally documents freshwater biodiversity, providing an index of fish species present in the river collected from the free-listing exercises, categorized into native and non-native as the latter can negatively affect trophic systems and ecosystem processes. , Thesis (MSocSci) -- Faculty of Humanities, Anthropology, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Institutional self-deception
- Jacot-Guillarmod, Genevieve Nicole
- Authors: Jacot-Guillarmod, Genevieve Nicole
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Self-deception , Business ethics , Social responsibility of business , Responsibility , Collective behavior Moral and ethical aspects , Attribution (Social psychology)
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294548 , vital:57231 , DOI https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/294548
- Description: There are many examples of institutions which have made false claims, or performed certain acts, that have had, to varying degrees, a negative impact on their societies. For example, many corporations go to great lengths to present themselves as being environmentally friendly when in fact they are not. Many corporations have also been forced to recall dangerous products which they at one time or another insisted were safe. Research teams have misled participants with regard to what they can expect from their participation in studies, with grave consequences. Governments throughout the world are mired in corruption, and yet deny that this is so. One possible explanation is that in such situations these institutions are simply lying. However, another possible explanation is that these institutions are self-deceived, or lying to themselves. Recently it has been suggested that self-deception is something that affects certain groups as well as individuals. Given that institutions can wield a great deal of political, social and economic power, if institutions are capable of self-deception there is room for things to go awry on a very large scale with potentially dire consequences. Yet the explanations currently on offer for group-level self-deception appear to amount to instances of individual self-deception (either to certain key individual members of those groups being self-deceived, or to all or most members of a group sharing the same self-deceptive belief), and as such I do not regard the explanations currently on offer as satisfactory. I propose that there are certain situations in which we ought to see institutions themselves as self-deceived or lying to themselves. While the terms ‘self-deception’ and ‘lying to oneself’ are often used interchangeably, I differentiate between the two and argue that both institutional self-deception and an institution lying to itself are institution-level phenomena, and do not rely on any individual within the institution being self-deceived or lying to themselves. That this is so is of relevance to our attributions of accountability, and makes changes to institutional structure and procedures the focus of concern when it comes to preventing an institution succumbing to self-deception or lying to itself. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Philosophy, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Jacot-Guillarmod, Genevieve Nicole
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Self-deception , Business ethics , Social responsibility of business , Responsibility , Collective behavior Moral and ethical aspects , Attribution (Social psychology)
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294548 , vital:57231 , DOI https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/294548
- Description: There are many examples of institutions which have made false claims, or performed certain acts, that have had, to varying degrees, a negative impact on their societies. For example, many corporations go to great lengths to present themselves as being environmentally friendly when in fact they are not. Many corporations have also been forced to recall dangerous products which they at one time or another insisted were safe. Research teams have misled participants with regard to what they can expect from their participation in studies, with grave consequences. Governments throughout the world are mired in corruption, and yet deny that this is so. One possible explanation is that in such situations these institutions are simply lying. However, another possible explanation is that these institutions are self-deceived, or lying to themselves. Recently it has been suggested that self-deception is something that affects certain groups as well as individuals. Given that institutions can wield a great deal of political, social and economic power, if institutions are capable of self-deception there is room for things to go awry on a very large scale with potentially dire consequences. Yet the explanations currently on offer for group-level self-deception appear to amount to instances of individual self-deception (either to certain key individual members of those groups being self-deceived, or to all or most members of a group sharing the same self-deceptive belief), and as such I do not regard the explanations currently on offer as satisfactory. I propose that there are certain situations in which we ought to see institutions themselves as self-deceived or lying to themselves. While the terms ‘self-deception’ and ‘lying to oneself’ are often used interchangeably, I differentiate between the two and argue that both institutional self-deception and an institution lying to itself are institution-level phenomena, and do not rely on any individual within the institution being self-deceived or lying to themselves. That this is so is of relevance to our attributions of accountability, and makes changes to institutional structure and procedures the focus of concern when it comes to preventing an institution succumbing to self-deception or lying to itself. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Philosophy, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Joice Mujuru and the Zanu-PF Women’s League 1973-2014: opportunities and limits of maternal dignity (musha mukadzi) and self-preservation
- Authors: Mataruse, Sisasenkosi
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Mujuru, Amai Joice T R (Amai Joice Teurai Ropa) , ZANU Women's League , Women and democracy Zimbabwe , Women Political activity Zimbabwe , Political leadership Zimbabwe , Sexism in political culture Zimbabwe , Patriarchy Zimbabwe , Women Zimbabwe Social conditions , Maternal dignity (musha mukadzi)
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/292748 , vital:57012
- Description: The foundations of African feminisms are intertwined with the historical liberation of the African continent. Joice Mujuru’s five decades in Zimbabwean political parties are no different in showing the gendered nature of the fight against the intersectional oppressions of nation, race, class and gender. The research aimed to examine the political life of Joice Mujuru between 1973 and 2018 in various political roles and what this might mean for how women political leaders participate and make decisions as autonomous individuals within political parties in Zimbabwe. This study is a political biography of Joice Mujuru’s ideas and leadership in political parties in Zimbabwe since 1973, when she joined the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) as a guerilla of its military wing, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA). Mujuru was the only woman in the first ZANU-PF cabinet in 1980. She served the Zimbabwean government in different cabinet positions and became the first female vice-president in 2004, until her ousting in 2014. This study is based on an interview with Mujuru, and nine interviews with one Member of Parliament, two independent political party candidates, three academics, two CSO activists, the leader of LEAD political party in Zimbabwe and personal communication with a celebrated Zimbabwean writer. The study uses the concept of “patriarchal bargain” (Kandiyoti, 1988; Makhunga, 2016) and “femocracy” (Mama, 1995b) to show that Mujuru’s participation in political parties has been shaped by compromising and negotiating a complex web of patriarchal constraints for acceptance and respect. This study shows that wifehood and motherhood, the idea of musha mukadzi (‘woman as home’), stands out as a defining factor for Mujuru in her identity formation as a political party leader and how she views the roles of other women in Zimbabwean political parties and politics. I term this political identity maternal dignity, which is a collective set of ideas of maternal respect determining women’s participation in political parties. The study shows that Mujuru uses dominant ideas of maternal dignity as a tool of self-presentation and self-preservation to survive as a political leader. Mujuru’s expulsion from ZANU-PF and her subsequent leadership in other political parties demonstrates the ways in which maternal dignity limits women from shaping alternative ideas of leadership outside of respectable womanhood. Through a political biography of Mujuru, the study reaches the conclusion that post-independence Zimbabwe offers limited space for women’s leadership, whether those women have liberation history credentials or not. The strategy of maternal dignity that Mujuru has used to navigate her political career is a “patriarchal bargain” with limited possibilities for women’s meaningful participation, and the transformation of political parties and governance in Zimbabwe. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Political and International Studies, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Mataruse, Sisasenkosi
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Mujuru, Amai Joice T R (Amai Joice Teurai Ropa) , ZANU Women's League , Women and democracy Zimbabwe , Women Political activity Zimbabwe , Political leadership Zimbabwe , Sexism in political culture Zimbabwe , Patriarchy Zimbabwe , Women Zimbabwe Social conditions , Maternal dignity (musha mukadzi)
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/292748 , vital:57012
- Description: The foundations of African feminisms are intertwined with the historical liberation of the African continent. Joice Mujuru’s five decades in Zimbabwean political parties are no different in showing the gendered nature of the fight against the intersectional oppressions of nation, race, class and gender. The research aimed to examine the political life of Joice Mujuru between 1973 and 2018 in various political roles and what this might mean for how women political leaders participate and make decisions as autonomous individuals within political parties in Zimbabwe. This study is a political biography of Joice Mujuru’s ideas and leadership in political parties in Zimbabwe since 1973, when she joined the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) as a guerilla of its military wing, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA). Mujuru was the only woman in the first ZANU-PF cabinet in 1980. She served the Zimbabwean government in different cabinet positions and became the first female vice-president in 2004, until her ousting in 2014. This study is based on an interview with Mujuru, and nine interviews with one Member of Parliament, two independent political party candidates, three academics, two CSO activists, the leader of LEAD political party in Zimbabwe and personal communication with a celebrated Zimbabwean writer. The study uses the concept of “patriarchal bargain” (Kandiyoti, 1988; Makhunga, 2016) and “femocracy” (Mama, 1995b) to show that Mujuru’s participation in political parties has been shaped by compromising and negotiating a complex web of patriarchal constraints for acceptance and respect. This study shows that wifehood and motherhood, the idea of musha mukadzi (‘woman as home’), stands out as a defining factor for Mujuru in her identity formation as a political party leader and how she views the roles of other women in Zimbabwean political parties and politics. I term this political identity maternal dignity, which is a collective set of ideas of maternal respect determining women’s participation in political parties. The study shows that Mujuru uses dominant ideas of maternal dignity as a tool of self-presentation and self-preservation to survive as a political leader. Mujuru’s expulsion from ZANU-PF and her subsequent leadership in other political parties demonstrates the ways in which maternal dignity limits women from shaping alternative ideas of leadership outside of respectable womanhood. Through a political biography of Mujuru, the study reaches the conclusion that post-independence Zimbabwe offers limited space for women’s leadership, whether those women have liberation history credentials or not. The strategy of maternal dignity that Mujuru has used to navigate her political career is a “patriarchal bargain” with limited possibilities for women’s meaningful participation, and the transformation of political parties and governance in Zimbabwe. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Political and International Studies, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Magnitude
- Authors: Seddon, Deborah Ann
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Zimbabwean poetry (English) 21st century , Diaries -- Authorship , Polish literature 21st century History and criticism , English poetry 20th century History and criticism , English literature Irish authors History and criticism , American poetry 21st century History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/234400 , vital:50192
- Description: My thesis is a collection of lyric, narrative, and prose poetry directed towards two forms of death – physical death and the disavowal of the self. Many poems focus on the death of my mother, and the work required after loss to sort through a family’s life in my Harare childhood home. This associative exploration draws together childhood memories, encounters with physical objects, letters, and songs, as well as with the city and its people. Tadeusz Rózewicz’s Mother Departs has influenced my approach to writing of my mother’s death, particularly how to grant her a voice in the telling. I also draw on the poetry of Harmony Holiday and Pascal Petite, in their attention to the complexities and emotional dangers of the mother-daughter bond. Other poems draw on the work of Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Judy Grahn, Ocean Vuong, and Saeed Jones, in terms of imagining queer life into poetry, the use of the erotic as a means of empowerment, and developing a queer political identity, to examine various aspects of queer love, including the heartaches associated with self-denial. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Seddon, Deborah Ann
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Zimbabwean poetry (English) 21st century , Diaries -- Authorship , Polish literature 21st century History and criticism , English poetry 20th century History and criticism , English literature Irish authors History and criticism , American poetry 21st century History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/234400 , vital:50192
- Description: My thesis is a collection of lyric, narrative, and prose poetry directed towards two forms of death – physical death and the disavowal of the self. Many poems focus on the death of my mother, and the work required after loss to sort through a family’s life in my Harare childhood home. This associative exploration draws together childhood memories, encounters with physical objects, letters, and songs, as well as with the city and its people. Tadeusz Rózewicz’s Mother Departs has influenced my approach to writing of my mother’s death, particularly how to grant her a voice in the telling. I also draw on the poetry of Harmony Holiday and Pascal Petite, in their attention to the complexities and emotional dangers of the mother-daughter bond. Other poems draw on the work of Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Judy Grahn, Ocean Vuong, and Saeed Jones, in terms of imagining queer life into poetry, the use of the erotic as a means of empowerment, and developing a queer political identity, to examine various aspects of queer love, including the heartaches associated with self-denial. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Needs assessment for gender-sensitive training in substance use disorder treatment for gender-nonconforming people
- Authors: Tao, Lane
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Discrimination in mental health services , Substance abuse Psychological aspects , Substance abuse Social aspects , Substance abuse Treatment , LGBTQ+ people Psychology , LGBTQ+ people Mental health services , Gender mainstreaming , Psychiatric ethics
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/234339 , vital:50187
- Description: Research suggests that queer people face both general discrimination and inadequate support in substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. One recommendation made by scholarship to address this is to improve the treatment capabilities of practitioners, thus improving practitioner readiness and reducing access barriers for a potentially at-risk population. The purpose of this study is to explore SUD treatment practitioners’ experiences of treating queer clients and identify their training needs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven registered mental healthcare practitioners operating in Cape Town, South Africa. Data was analysed via thematic analysis, using a social constructionist approach to gender and practitioner knowledge. The findings reflect a strong interest in gender-sensitive training to better prepare practitioners for treating queer clients. Participants provided feedback on areas in need of improvement and made recommendations on how training should be conducted. Findings indicate that queer clients may enter treatment with a high burden of trauma due to discrimination, and that healthcare structures abiding by a binary approach to gender may not be able to address queer people’s diverse needs. Recommendations for future research are made, with particular emphasis on including queer people in surveillance data. Target areas for training programmes are described, with emphasis on terminological understanding and accessibility of training. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Psychology, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Tao, Lane
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Discrimination in mental health services , Substance abuse Psychological aspects , Substance abuse Social aspects , Substance abuse Treatment , LGBTQ+ people Psychology , LGBTQ+ people Mental health services , Gender mainstreaming , Psychiatric ethics
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/234339 , vital:50187
- Description: Research suggests that queer people face both general discrimination and inadequate support in substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. One recommendation made by scholarship to address this is to improve the treatment capabilities of practitioners, thus improving practitioner readiness and reducing access barriers for a potentially at-risk population. The purpose of this study is to explore SUD treatment practitioners’ experiences of treating queer clients and identify their training needs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven registered mental healthcare practitioners operating in Cape Town, South Africa. Data was analysed via thematic analysis, using a social constructionist approach to gender and practitioner knowledge. The findings reflect a strong interest in gender-sensitive training to better prepare practitioners for treating queer clients. Participants provided feedback on areas in need of improvement and made recommendations on how training should be conducted. Findings indicate that queer clients may enter treatment with a high burden of trauma due to discrimination, and that healthcare structures abiding by a binary approach to gender may not be able to address queer people’s diverse needs. Recommendations for future research are made, with particular emphasis on including queer people in surveillance data. Target areas for training programmes are described, with emphasis on terminological understanding and accessibility of training. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Psychology, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Pink Concrete
- Authors: Curr, Jill Alexandra
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , South African fiction (English) 21st century , English fiction History and criticism , Nigerian fiction (English) History and criticism , Argentine fiction History and criticism , Angolan fiction (Portuguese) History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232388 , vital:49987
- Description: (From Reader Report Reflection) - I started this course believing I was not a writer. I knew that I loved to write, I knew that it was innate to how I perceived the world. I had written a novel previously, it was an outpouring, uncontrollable imagination spew. I was often scared and doubted myself throughout writing it, but I took comfort in my reading. I picked up all the classics, modern and old, rewriting the words into notebooks alongside my own, retracing the sounds, the rhythms, the symbols and their little links, the pauses. I collected pieces rereading them with reverence, my fingers curling over the lines sunken into the page. I didn’t understand what I was doing, it felt natural to hide in the skirts of other writers peering behind the curtain to see how they built the illusion. And yet, even after finishing my novel I still didn’t think I was a writer; it was a hobby, it was something extra to me, a backpack I could take off and on. I denied what was innate, and said it was not that important to me. I applied for this Master’s in Creative Writing (MACW)7 course because I wanted external validation on my first novel and an application was probably the only way, I was going to get someone to read it. It is sad and stunted that I needed this external validation to believe I could try, to believe that I could learn to control this compulsion, to believe that I could become a writer. In our first course contact week,8 lecturers and supervisors kept saying again again that we were already writers, that this is what we are. I was scared of this, that they would find out I was not really meant to be here. Writing, taking those solitary thoughts that are too much for my skull and making them real, something tangible; this is how I move through my existence. I take pieces of myself and paste them to the page, otherwise the thoughts build up like snow around a car until you are suffocating in an icebox. And by removing this part of myself to just a hobby, a silly backpack that I can pick up and put down, was just me running away. This MACW course gave me the tools to tap into what I am, that I have a why that I must write to and that I have an audience for this why. By sharing pieces of myself, I make them real again, something I can study, tracing their edges, their dark underbelly, the light hillocks. I sat with my fear for two years slowly, piece by piece, cracking it open. I learnt to love my voice and believe in it without needing external validation, without needing the gold star of acceptance, because I accept and love what I am trying to build with my writing. , Thesis (MACW) -- Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Curr, Jill Alexandra
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , South African fiction (English) 21st century , English fiction History and criticism , Nigerian fiction (English) History and criticism , Argentine fiction History and criticism , Angolan fiction (Portuguese) History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232388 , vital:49987
- Description: (From Reader Report Reflection) - I started this course believing I was not a writer. I knew that I loved to write, I knew that it was innate to how I perceived the world. I had written a novel previously, it was an outpouring, uncontrollable imagination spew. I was often scared and doubted myself throughout writing it, but I took comfort in my reading. I picked up all the classics, modern and old, rewriting the words into notebooks alongside my own, retracing the sounds, the rhythms, the symbols and their little links, the pauses. I collected pieces rereading them with reverence, my fingers curling over the lines sunken into the page. I didn’t understand what I was doing, it felt natural to hide in the skirts of other writers peering behind the curtain to see how they built the illusion. And yet, even after finishing my novel I still didn’t think I was a writer; it was a hobby, it was something extra to me, a backpack I could take off and on. I denied what was innate, and said it was not that important to me. I applied for this Master’s in Creative Writing (MACW)7 course because I wanted external validation on my first novel and an application was probably the only way, I was going to get someone to read it. It is sad and stunted that I needed this external validation to believe I could try, to believe that I could learn to control this compulsion, to believe that I could become a writer. In our first course contact week,8 lecturers and supervisors kept saying again again that we were already writers, that this is what we are. I was scared of this, that they would find out I was not really meant to be here. Writing, taking those solitary thoughts that are too much for my skull and making them real, something tangible; this is how I move through my existence. I take pieces of myself and paste them to the page, otherwise the thoughts build up like snow around a car until you are suffocating in an icebox. And by removing this part of myself to just a hobby, a silly backpack that I can pick up and put down, was just me running away. This MACW course gave me the tools to tap into what I am, that I have a why that I must write to and that I have an audience for this why. By sharing pieces of myself, I make them real again, something I can study, tracing their edges, their dark underbelly, the light hillocks. I sat with my fear for two years slowly, piece by piece, cracking it open. I learnt to love my voice and believe in it without needing external validation, without needing the gold star of acceptance, because I accept and love what I am trying to build with my writing. , Thesis (MACW) -- Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
Praying mantis
- Authors: Kenene, Thobeka
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , South African fiction (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) 21st century , Portuguese fiction 20th century History and criticism , Russian fiction 20th century History and criticism , Zimbabwean fiction (English) 20th century History and criticism , American fiction 20th century History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/292726 , vital:57010
- Description: (Prologue) I could only see in black and white as if I had travelled through time. I was the star of the medieval people who waited on me. The city was Johannesburg where strange faces called me a traitor because I was an educated black person. I hid between the skyscrapers and ran into a mirror image of myself as a man. “I write this book,” he said to his readers, “To invoke a yearning in our youth to awaken from slumber. To set examples for them to desist from characters like Velesazi and Nongendi, and imitate Nomsa and Themba. And also, to contribute to Xhosa literature.” He signed off by calling himself our servant. These are the words from the note my great-grandfather left me. We walked together across a barren field and past a graveyard. I was feeling tired and lost; I wanted to get home as fast as possible. We quickened our step and entered a church site. Inside the church were all my close relatives. I saw myself on stage looking down at them, and when I opened my mouth to sing, they began laughing at me. I imagined him in his 1917 suit, as a writer, penning down his first novel that is dedicated to his mother. His round cheeks enveloped in a haze of candle light. He visited my dream in 2012 and in the dream he asked me, “Do you see?” I said, “Yes, I see.” My great-grandfather hummed a song from his belly. I inhaled deeply into my belly and then exhaled a sound. Together we hummed this song that made everyone fall silent and listen. In the dream I could feel my lungs expanding and deflating along to the rhythm of the song. As my great-grandfather and I sang it, the night lamps shone brighter. I had become my great-grandfather, wearing his suit and black leather shoes. His friends were my friends. They turned and asked me what my clan name was. When I told them, they whispered something among themselves. One of them said to me, “Unogcwabevu.” I saw a white unknown woman who was afraid of me. I told her it is going to be okay, and that I would not harm her. But the colour of my skin frightened her. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
- Authors: Kenene, Thobeka
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , South African fiction (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) 21st century , Portuguese fiction 20th century History and criticism , Russian fiction 20th century History and criticism , Zimbabwean fiction (English) 20th century History and criticism , American fiction 20th century History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/292726 , vital:57010
- Description: (Prologue) I could only see in black and white as if I had travelled through time. I was the star of the medieval people who waited on me. The city was Johannesburg where strange faces called me a traitor because I was an educated black person. I hid between the skyscrapers and ran into a mirror image of myself as a man. “I write this book,” he said to his readers, “To invoke a yearning in our youth to awaken from slumber. To set examples for them to desist from characters like Velesazi and Nongendi, and imitate Nomsa and Themba. And also, to contribute to Xhosa literature.” He signed off by calling himself our servant. These are the words from the note my great-grandfather left me. We walked together across a barren field and past a graveyard. I was feeling tired and lost; I wanted to get home as fast as possible. We quickened our step and entered a church site. Inside the church were all my close relatives. I saw myself on stage looking down at them, and when I opened my mouth to sing, they began laughing at me. I imagined him in his 1917 suit, as a writer, penning down his first novel that is dedicated to his mother. His round cheeks enveloped in a haze of candle light. He visited my dream in 2012 and in the dream he asked me, “Do you see?” I said, “Yes, I see.” My great-grandfather hummed a song from his belly. I inhaled deeply into my belly and then exhaled a sound. Together we hummed this song that made everyone fall silent and listen. In the dream I could feel my lungs expanding and deflating along to the rhythm of the song. As my great-grandfather and I sang it, the night lamps shone brighter. I had become my great-grandfather, wearing his suit and black leather shoes. His friends were my friends. They turned and asked me what my clan name was. When I told them, they whispered something among themselves. One of them said to me, “Unogcwabevu.” I saw a white unknown woman who was afraid of me. I told her it is going to be okay, and that I would not harm her. But the colour of my skin frightened her. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-07