Introducing VET Africa 4.0
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, McGrath, Simon
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , McGrath, Simon
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434930 , vital:73117 , ISBN 978-1529224634 , https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/transitioning-vocational-education-and-training-in-africa
- Description: This book is about vocational education and training (VET). It is concerned with how the current policy and practice orthodoxy is not working despite the efforts of educators and learners. It is driven by a realization that the futures for which VET is intended to prepare people are ever more precarious at the individual, societal and planetary levels. And it is motivated by a sense that while better futures are possible, VET is poorly positioned to respond to the new skilling needs these will require.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , McGrath, Simon
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434930 , vital:73117 , ISBN 978-1529224634 , https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/transitioning-vocational-education-and-training-in-africa
- Description: This book is about vocational education and training (VET). It is concerned with how the current policy and practice orthodoxy is not working despite the efforts of educators and learners. It is driven by a realization that the futures for which VET is intended to prepare people are ever more precarious at the individual, societal and planetary levels. And it is motivated by a sense that while better futures are possible, VET is poorly positioned to respond to the new skilling needs these will require.
- Full Text:
Supporting social learning and knowledge management withing the ecological infrastructure for water security project
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Cockburn, Jessica J, Rosenberg, Eureta, le Roux, Liesl, Zwinkels, Marijn, Mbaniwa, Wenzile, Ward, Mike, Brownell, Faye, Sithole, Nkosigithandile, Makhaya, Zanele, Mponwana, Maletje, du Plessis, Pienaar
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Cockburn, Jessica J , Rosenberg, Eureta , le Roux, Liesl , Zwinkels, Marijn , Mbaniwa, Wenzile , Ward, Mike , Brownell, Faye , Sithole, Nkosigithandile , Makhaya, Zanele , Mponwana, Maletje , du Plessis, Pienaar
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425719 , vital:72278 , ISBN 978-0-6392-0553-3 , https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/2988%20final.pdf
- Description: In this section, we outline processes relating to stakeholder engage-ment relevant to the SLKMM strategy, which include stakeholder analy-sis, a stakeholder tracking tool and a stakeholder database. These pro-cesses and products required on-going refinement during implementa-tion of the SLKMM strategy. The implications of the stakeholder analy-sis work in developing the SLKMM strategy are articulated further in CHAPTER 3: STRATEGY-AS-PRACTICE FOR SOCIAL LEARNING, KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND MEDIATION (SLKMM)
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Cockburn, Jessica J , Rosenberg, Eureta , le Roux, Liesl , Zwinkels, Marijn , Mbaniwa, Wenzile , Ward, Mike , Brownell, Faye , Sithole, Nkosigithandile , Makhaya, Zanele , Mponwana, Maletje , du Plessis, Pienaar
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425719 , vital:72278 , ISBN 978-0-6392-0553-3 , https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/2988%20final.pdf
- Description: In this section, we outline processes relating to stakeholder engage-ment relevant to the SLKMM strategy, which include stakeholder analy-sis, a stakeholder tracking tool and a stakeholder database. These pro-cesses and products required on-going refinement during implementa-tion of the SLKMM strategy. The implications of the stakeholder analy-sis work in developing the SLKMM strategy are articulated further in CHAPTER 3: STRATEGY-AS-PRACTICE FOR SOCIAL LEARNING, KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND MEDIATION (SLKMM)
- Full Text:
The Role of the University as Mediator in a Skills Ecosystem Approach to VET
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Openjuru, George, Zeelen, Jacques
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Openjuru, George , Zeelen, Jacques
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434907 , vital:73115 , ISBN 978-1529224634 , https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/transitioning-vocational-education-and-training-in-africa
- Description: In this chapter, we focus particularly on the mediating role of the university, in close connection with vocational institutions and informal community actors, in developing an inclusive approach to vocational education and training (VET) through an expanded social ecosystem for skills model. Here we draw upon lessons learnt from the Alice and Gulu cases on communitybased approaches to establishing an expanded skills ecosystem approach to VET in Africa. The main ques-tion guiding this chapter relates to the possible mediating role of the university to enhance a regional expanded ecosystem for supporting quality vocational education that is also rele-vant to its context, including emergent possibilities to build skills and livelihoods linked to just transitions. Universities are not VET centres as conventionally understood, but they can contribute to VET in various ways. Most often, universities are identified as contributing to the qualifications and training of VET educators. In this chapter, we take a different angle and consider the role of engaged research and community engagement as two approaches that can contribute to the advancement of an expanded social ecosystem model with positive benefits for VET institutions. Drawing on insights gained in the earlier chapters of this book requires us to take into account several important realities as previously dis-cussed, as well as key ingredients for the development of a regional skills ecosystem of vocational education, as demon-strated by the two cases considered in this chapter.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Openjuru, George , Zeelen, Jacques
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434907 , vital:73115 , ISBN 978-1529224634 , https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/transitioning-vocational-education-and-training-in-africa
- Description: In this chapter, we focus particularly on the mediating role of the university, in close connection with vocational institutions and informal community actors, in developing an inclusive approach to vocational education and training (VET) through an expanded social ecosystem for skills model. Here we draw upon lessons learnt from the Alice and Gulu cases on communitybased approaches to establishing an expanded skills ecosystem approach to VET in Africa. The main ques-tion guiding this chapter relates to the possible mediating role of the university to enhance a regional expanded ecosystem for supporting quality vocational education that is also rele-vant to its context, including emergent possibilities to build skills and livelihoods linked to just transitions. Universities are not VET centres as conventionally understood, but they can contribute to VET in various ways. Most often, universities are identified as contributing to the qualifications and training of VET educators. In this chapter, we take a different angle and consider the role of engaged research and community engagement as two approaches that can contribute to the advancement of an expanded social ecosystem model with positive benefits for VET institutions. Drawing on insights gained in the earlier chapters of this book requires us to take into account several important realities as previously dis-cussed, as well as key ingredients for the development of a regional skills ecosystem of vocational education, as demon-strated by the two cases considered in this chapter.
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TVET SI: Evaluating Boundary Crossing Social Learning in Vocational Education and Training: A value creation approach
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Sisitka, Lawrence, Chakona, Gamuchirai, Matiwane, Mandilive L, Matambo, Chamu
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Sisitka, Lawrence , Chakona, Gamuchirai , Matiwane, Mandilive L , Matambo, Chamu
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389925 , vital:68495 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/238540"
- Description: This article focuses on the development and application of an evaluation model and approach for evaluating boundary crossing social learning in a Vocational Education and Training (VET) learning network in South Africa, with an emphasis on a Training of Trainers (ToT) course that helped to catalyse and strengthen this learning network via two iterations of the course over an eight-year period. The article shares how we adapted the value creation framework (VCF) of Wenger, Traynor and De Laat (2011; Wenger and Wenger-Traynor, 2020) in the evaluation of a VET Training of Trainers (ToT) programme and learning network that focussed on the uptake and circulation of rainwater harvesting and conservation (RWHandC) knowledge in a particular formal and informal VET context in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, where smallholder farmers were struggling to find water for producing food. The evaluated ToT course was catalytic in establishing a boundary crossing social learning network approach in a VET context that linked formal and informal VET (Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2016; Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2022; Pesanayi, 2019); hence we found it important to develop adequate tools for its evaluation. The focus of this article is to share how we developed an evaluation approach to this work. We share insights on the indicators developed for diff erent types of value created, and also insights gained into the use of this evaluation approach in a boundary crossing VET social learning project that took a ToT course as focus. In short, evaluation findings show that the boundary crossing ToT course off ers strong immediate, potential and applied value that can lead to realised and reframed value, especially if supported by ongoing learning network activities that follow the initial engagement in the boundary crossing ToT course. Th is leads, over time, to transformative value which is important in achieving the overall objective of such social learning, namely making knowledge more co-engaging, accessible and useful in the context where improved food security via better use of rainwater harvesting and conservation amongst smallholder farmers and household food producers is a necessary form of sustainable development. Orientation value, and enabling value were found to be vital for the emergence of other kinds of value. The evaluation model also allows for the lifting out of strategic value which points to wider uptake potential. All this creates the possibility for indicator development that can help inform iterative development of boundary crossing VET courses used to stimulate the co-construction of learning networks and ongoing social learning for sustainable development.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Sisitka, Lawrence , Chakona, Gamuchirai , Matiwane, Mandilive L , Matambo, Chamu
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389925 , vital:68495 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/238540"
- Description: This article focuses on the development and application of an evaluation model and approach for evaluating boundary crossing social learning in a Vocational Education and Training (VET) learning network in South Africa, with an emphasis on a Training of Trainers (ToT) course that helped to catalyse and strengthen this learning network via two iterations of the course over an eight-year period. The article shares how we adapted the value creation framework (VCF) of Wenger, Traynor and De Laat (2011; Wenger and Wenger-Traynor, 2020) in the evaluation of a VET Training of Trainers (ToT) programme and learning network that focussed on the uptake and circulation of rainwater harvesting and conservation (RWHandC) knowledge in a particular formal and informal VET context in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, where smallholder farmers were struggling to find water for producing food. The evaluated ToT course was catalytic in establishing a boundary crossing social learning network approach in a VET context that linked formal and informal VET (Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2016; Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2022; Pesanayi, 2019); hence we found it important to develop adequate tools for its evaluation. The focus of this article is to share how we developed an evaluation approach to this work. We share insights on the indicators developed for diff erent types of value created, and also insights gained into the use of this evaluation approach in a boundary crossing VET social learning project that took a ToT course as focus. In short, evaluation findings show that the boundary crossing ToT course off ers strong immediate, potential and applied value that can lead to realised and reframed value, especially if supported by ongoing learning network activities that follow the initial engagement in the boundary crossing ToT course. Th is leads, over time, to transformative value which is important in achieving the overall objective of such social learning, namely making knowledge more co-engaging, accessible and useful in the context where improved food security via better use of rainwater harvesting and conservation amongst smallholder farmers and household food producers is a necessary form of sustainable development. Orientation value, and enabling value were found to be vital for the emergence of other kinds of value. The evaluation model also allows for the lifting out of strategic value which points to wider uptake potential. All this creates the possibility for indicator development that can help inform iterative development of boundary crossing VET courses used to stimulate the co-construction of learning networks and ongoing social learning for sustainable development.
- Full Text:
Water, Transport, Oil and Food: A Political–Economy–Ecology Lens on Changing Conceptions of Work, Learning and Skills Development in Africa
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434894 , vital:73114 , ISBN 978-1529224634 , https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/transitioning-vocational-education-and-training-in-africa
- Description: Not enough has been said about the kinds of skills develop-ment that are needed if we are to stem the rising tides and impacts of political economies that have been driving what some call ‘fossil capital’(Malm, 2016). In this book, we are producing an emerging argument that it is necessary to also rethink and reframe vocational education and training (VET) logics and approaches if we are to fully consider the implica-tions of a warming future. This chapter provides the context of why this is such an urgent challenge and some thinking tools for understanding where we have come from and where we need to go. The prognosis is that it is now almost impossible to stop global warming below 2oC. The 2021 In-tergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is-sued a ‘red alert’for humanity, noting climate change to be one of the most severe challenges facing human societies for decades and potentially centuries to come. Scientists are warning that we have entered a new ‘geological epoch’, named the ‘Anthropocene’, in which human activity, especial-ly the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through fossil-based pollution, is transforming the stability of the earth system and creating knock on effects such as ice melt and methane release, which exacerbate the impacts of pollutants on the stability of the earth system.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434894 , vital:73114 , ISBN 978-1529224634 , https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/transitioning-vocational-education-and-training-in-africa
- Description: Not enough has been said about the kinds of skills develop-ment that are needed if we are to stem the rising tides and impacts of political economies that have been driving what some call ‘fossil capital’(Malm, 2016). In this book, we are producing an emerging argument that it is necessary to also rethink and reframe vocational education and training (VET) logics and approaches if we are to fully consider the implica-tions of a warming future. This chapter provides the context of why this is such an urgent challenge and some thinking tools for understanding where we have come from and where we need to go. The prognosis is that it is now almost impossible to stop global warming below 2oC. The 2021 In-tergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is-sued a ‘red alert’for humanity, noting climate change to be one of the most severe challenges facing human societies for decades and potentially centuries to come. Scientists are warning that we have entered a new ‘geological epoch’, named the ‘Anthropocene’, in which human activity, especial-ly the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through fossil-based pollution, is transforming the stability of the earth system and creating knock on effects such as ice melt and methane release, which exacerbate the impacts of pollutants on the stability of the earth system.
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A laminated, emergentist view of skills ecosystems
- Ramsarup, Presha, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, McGrath, Simon
- Authors: Ramsarup, Presha , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , McGrath, Simon
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370074 , vital:66295 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2145768"
- Description: In this paper we present a model of vocational education and training (VET) that can be used to guide decisions relating to VET in Africa today. This model takes the critique of the neoclassical, neoliberal model of VET as its starting point. Guided by Bhaskar's Critical Naturalism, we use immanent critique to consider the adequacy of proposed alternatives to the neoclassical approach, such as: the heterodox approach, which foregrounds explanations based on human capital and political economy; and Hodgson and Spours' social ecosystem model, which addresses some of the limitations of the heterodox account by including, social and ecosystem elements. Finally, we offer a version of the social ecosystem model that, according to our analysis, explains more of the empirical evidence than previous models. Our version of the social ecosystem model differs from earlier versions in terms of its explicit reference to the critical realist ideas of position- practices and emergence.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Ramsarup, Presha , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , McGrath, Simon
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370074 , vital:66295 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2145768"
- Description: In this paper we present a model of vocational education and training (VET) that can be used to guide decisions relating to VET in Africa today. This model takes the critique of the neoclassical, neoliberal model of VET as its starting point. Guided by Bhaskar's Critical Naturalism, we use immanent critique to consider the adequacy of proposed alternatives to the neoclassical approach, such as: the heterodox approach, which foregrounds explanations based on human capital and political economy; and Hodgson and Spours' social ecosystem model, which addresses some of the limitations of the heterodox account by including, social and ecosystem elements. Finally, we offer a version of the social ecosystem model that, according to our analysis, explains more of the empirical evidence than previous models. Our version of the social ecosystem model differs from earlier versions in terms of its explicit reference to the critical realist ideas of position- practices and emergence.
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Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures: Intersecting dynamics of food, water, livelihoods and education in the COVID-19 pandemic
- Velempini, Kgosietsile, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Kulundu, Injairu, Maqwelane, Lwanda, James, Anna, Mphepo, Gibson, Dyantyi, Phila, Kunkwenza, Esthery
- Authors: Velempini, Kgosietsile , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Kulundu, Injairu , Maqwelane, Lwanda , James, Anna , Mphepo, Gibson , Dyantyi, Phila , Kunkwenza, Esthery
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389903 , vital:68494 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/211392"
- Description: Since 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to but also highlighted the urgent need for transforming education for sustainable futures. The purpose of this article is to share insights gained from a southern African study on intersecting influences of water, food, livelihoods and education, and what they mean for Education for Sustainable Development going forward. The interest is to learn from this study in ways that can inform transformation of education for sustainable futures in southern Africa going forward. The study involved a number of early career researchers in SADC countries, and was conducted via an online approach during the early days of the pandemic. It followed a qualitative research design, employed document analysis, interviews and questionnaires, and drew on a systems perspective to inform analysis. The findings are as relevant today as they were in the pandemic, and point to the importance of giving attention to intersecting issues that affect education. The study highlights six transformative praxis pathways for transforming education for sustainable futures.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Velempini, Kgosietsile , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Kulundu, Injairu , Maqwelane, Lwanda , James, Anna , Mphepo, Gibson , Dyantyi, Phila , Kunkwenza, Esthery
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389903 , vital:68494 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/211392"
- Description: Since 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to but also highlighted the urgent need for transforming education for sustainable futures. The purpose of this article is to share insights gained from a southern African study on intersecting influences of water, food, livelihoods and education, and what they mean for Education for Sustainable Development going forward. The interest is to learn from this study in ways that can inform transformation of education for sustainable futures in southern Africa going forward. The study involved a number of early career researchers in SADC countries, and was conducted via an online approach during the early days of the pandemic. It followed a qualitative research design, employed document analysis, interviews and questionnaires, and drew on a systems perspective to inform analysis. The findings are as relevant today as they were in the pandemic, and point to the importance of giving attention to intersecting issues that affect education. The study highlights six transformative praxis pathways for transforming education for sustainable futures.
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What’s in a conference theme?: Some reflections on critical realist research and its emergence in Africa over a period of 20+ years
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370739 , vital:66372 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2023.2146923"
- Description: In keeping with the 2021 IACR Conference theme (Re) Envisaging Emancipatory Research, Science and Practice, this paper reviews over fifty instances of critical realist research in Africa which have sought to establish emancipatory research praxis by using critical realism to underlabour a range of applied studies in a diversity of disciplines and countries. The initiators of this research have been drawn to critical realism for several reasons, most notably its return to ontology, its interest in transformed, transformative praxis, and its potential for addressing knowledge and experiences exclusions. The paper ends with a reflection on ‘What's in a Conference Theme', returning to the earlier 2012 IACR conference hosted in Africa, and the 2021 conference’s focus on emancipatory research. It argues both for the deepening of conversations between critical realism and Africana Critical Theory; and for the grounding of these conversations in the voices and power of the people in our communities
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370739 , vital:66372 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2023.2146923"
- Description: In keeping with the 2021 IACR Conference theme (Re) Envisaging Emancipatory Research, Science and Practice, this paper reviews over fifty instances of critical realist research in Africa which have sought to establish emancipatory research praxis by using critical realism to underlabour a range of applied studies in a diversity of disciplines and countries. The initiators of this research have been drawn to critical realism for several reasons, most notably its return to ontology, its interest in transformed, transformative praxis, and its potential for addressing knowledge and experiences exclusions. The paper ends with a reflection on ‘What's in a Conference Theme', returning to the earlier 2012 IACR conference hosted in Africa, and the 2021 conference’s focus on emancipatory research. It argues both for the deepening of conversations between critical realism and Africana Critical Theory; and for the grounding of these conversations in the voices and power of the people in our communities
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Introduction “New” theory,“post” North-South representations, praxis
- Rodrigues, Cae, Payne, Phillip G, Grange, Lesley L, Carvalho, Isabel C, Steil, Carlos A, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Linde-Loubser, Henriette
- Authors: Rodrigues, Cae , Payne, Phillip G , Grange, Lesley L , Carvalho, Isabel C , Steil, Carlos A , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Linde-Loubser, Henriette
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182736 , vital:43858 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2020.1726265"
- Description: At a recent academic conference in the South, nine of us grappled for four days with these “old” questions and their presence within the “new” discourse of “post” environmental education research. We struggled for an additional six-month period of email exchange to see and feel these questions in our own research. That slow, rich, and deeper academic exchange between us culminated in a research agenda, partially (re)presented in a collectively constructed Mindmap (Figure 1), for critiquing the post/new whose framing is described in the remainder of this Introduction to the politics of knowledge production. That politic of slowly and judiciously engaging a collective form of criticism culminates in identifying the research problem, and questions, of this Special Issue (SI) about the role and place of allegedly new theory in the global discourse of allegedly post environmental education research. This specially assembled issue of The Journal of Environmental Education (JEE) is our best effort to (partially) represent a considerable amount of thought about the challenge presented by “post” and “new” Western thought. In translating our collective thought processes to a SI, we anticipate the reflexivity of the field will be critically advanced through engaging a number of emerging debates (Robottom and Hart, 1993) identified in the following pages of this Introduction, and in three “sample” articles specially written by Isabel Carvalho, Carlos Steil and Francisco Abraão Gonzaga, Louise Sund and Karen Pashby, and Phillip Payne, and an “in process” Conclusion written by Cae Rodrigues. There remains much work to do. This SI is only a start of reengaging overdue debates about the post (Hart, 2005).
- Full Text:
- Authors: Rodrigues, Cae , Payne, Phillip G , Grange, Lesley L , Carvalho, Isabel C , Steil, Carlos A , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Linde-Loubser, Henriette
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182736 , vital:43858 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2020.1726265"
- Description: At a recent academic conference in the South, nine of us grappled for four days with these “old” questions and their presence within the “new” discourse of “post” environmental education research. We struggled for an additional six-month period of email exchange to see and feel these questions in our own research. That slow, rich, and deeper academic exchange between us culminated in a research agenda, partially (re)presented in a collectively constructed Mindmap (Figure 1), for critiquing the post/new whose framing is described in the remainder of this Introduction to the politics of knowledge production. That politic of slowly and judiciously engaging a collective form of criticism culminates in identifying the research problem, and questions, of this Special Issue (SI) about the role and place of allegedly new theory in the global discourse of allegedly post environmental education research. This specially assembled issue of The Journal of Environmental Education (JEE) is our best effort to (partially) represent a considerable amount of thought about the challenge presented by “post” and “new” Western thought. In translating our collective thought processes to a SI, we anticipate the reflexivity of the field will be critically advanced through engaging a number of emerging debates (Robottom and Hart, 1993) identified in the following pages of this Introduction, and in three “sample” articles specially written by Isabel Carvalho, Carlos Steil and Francisco Abraão Gonzaga, Louise Sund and Karen Pashby, and Phillip Payne, and an “in process” Conclusion written by Cae Rodrigues. There remains much work to do. This SI is only a start of reengaging overdue debates about the post (Hart, 2005).
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Think Piece: Learning, Living and Leading into Transgression–A reflection on decolonial praxis in a neoliberal world
- Kulundu-Bolus, Injairu M, McGarry, Dylan K, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: Kulundu-Bolus, Injairu M , McGarry, Dylan K , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182406 , vital:43827 , xlink:href="10.4314/sajee.v36i1.14"
- Description: Three scholar activists from South Africa reflect on what it means to transgress the limits of a neoliberal world and its crisis times, particularly considering transgressions in the service of a decolonial future. The authors explore three questions: i) What kind of learning can help us transgress the status quo? ii) How do we extend this learning into a commitment to actively living in transgressive ways? iii) What does it mean to lead in ways that re-generate a transgressive ethic in a neoliberal world? In a dialogical conversation format, the authors outline nine different but interconnected perspectives on learning, living and leading into transgression, with the aim of concurrently revealing the multiple layers of work that a decolonial future depends on, while demonstrating the ambitions of a pluriversal decolonial future through their writing. The intertwined narrative is not conclusive, as the processes marked out in brief are experiences that still need to be fully practised in new relations in times to come within academia-in-society-and-the-world with human and more-than-human actors. However, they do offer a generative set of questions, concepts and metaphors to give courage to boundary-dwelling scholar activists attempting transgressive research. These reflections seek to regenerate the transgressive ‘decolonial gestures’ (decolonialfutures.net) that we can undertake in a neo-liberal world, as an important part of environment and sustainability education practices. It draws out what an embodied practice of transgressive learning can entail when we become discerning of hegemonic discourses that reproduce the status quo. We pay homage to those decolonial scholars in the field of environment and sustainability education as we traverse this terrain, recognising their imagination and the transgressive movement that has come before us, but importantly we seek to also open pathways for those yet to come.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Kulundu-Bolus, Injairu M , McGarry, Dylan K , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182406 , vital:43827 , xlink:href="10.4314/sajee.v36i1.14"
- Description: Three scholar activists from South Africa reflect on what it means to transgress the limits of a neoliberal world and its crisis times, particularly considering transgressions in the service of a decolonial future. The authors explore three questions: i) What kind of learning can help us transgress the status quo? ii) How do we extend this learning into a commitment to actively living in transgressive ways? iii) What does it mean to lead in ways that re-generate a transgressive ethic in a neoliberal world? In a dialogical conversation format, the authors outline nine different but interconnected perspectives on learning, living and leading into transgression, with the aim of concurrently revealing the multiple layers of work that a decolonial future depends on, while demonstrating the ambitions of a pluriversal decolonial future through their writing. The intertwined narrative is not conclusive, as the processes marked out in brief are experiences that still need to be fully practised in new relations in times to come within academia-in-society-and-the-world with human and more-than-human actors. However, they do offer a generative set of questions, concepts and metaphors to give courage to boundary-dwelling scholar activists attempting transgressive research. These reflections seek to regenerate the transgressive ‘decolonial gestures’ (decolonialfutures.net) that we can undertake in a neo-liberal world, as an important part of environment and sustainability education practices. It draws out what an embodied practice of transgressive learning can entail when we become discerning of hegemonic discourses that reproduce the status quo. We pay homage to those decolonial scholars in the field of environment and sustainability education as we traverse this terrain, recognising their imagination and the transgressive movement that has come before us, but importantly we seek to also open pathways for those yet to come.
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Vocational education and training for African development: A literature review
- McGrath, Simon, Ramsarup, Presha, Zeelen, Jacques, Wedekind, Volker, Allais, Stephanie, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Monk, David, Openjuru, George, Russon, Jo-Anna
- Authors: McGrath, Simon , Ramsarup, Presha , Zeelen, Jacques , Wedekind, Volker , Allais, Stephanie , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Monk, David , Openjuru, George , Russon, Jo-Anna
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182418 , vital:43828 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2019.1679969"
- Description: The SDGs mark the clearest global acceptance yet that the previous approach to development was unsustainable. In VET, UNESCO has responded by developing a clear account of how a transformed VET must be part of a transformative approach to development. It argues that credible, comprehensive skills systems can be built that can support individuals, communities, and organisations to generate and maintain enhanced and just livelihood opportunities. However, the major current theoretical approaches to VET are not up to this challenge. In the context of Africa, we seek to address this problem through a presentation of literatures that contribute to the theorisation of this new vision. They agree that the world is not made up of atomised individuals guided by a “hidden hand”. Rather, reality is heavily structured within political economies that have emerged out of contestations and compromises in specific historical and geographical spaces. Thus, labour markets and education and training systems have arisen, characterised by inequalities and exclusions. These specific forms profoundly influence individuals’ and communities’ views about the value of different forms of learning and working. However, they do not fully define what individuals dream, think and do. Rather, a transformed and transformative VET for Africa is possible.
- Full Text:
- Authors: McGrath, Simon , Ramsarup, Presha , Zeelen, Jacques , Wedekind, Volker , Allais, Stephanie , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Monk, David , Openjuru, George , Russon, Jo-Anna
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182418 , vital:43828 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2019.1679969"
- Description: The SDGs mark the clearest global acceptance yet that the previous approach to development was unsustainable. In VET, UNESCO has responded by developing a clear account of how a transformed VET must be part of a transformative approach to development. It argues that credible, comprehensive skills systems can be built that can support individuals, communities, and organisations to generate and maintain enhanced and just livelihood opportunities. However, the major current theoretical approaches to VET are not up to this challenge. In the context of Africa, we seek to address this problem through a presentation of literatures that contribute to the theorisation of this new vision. They agree that the world is not made up of atomised individuals guided by a “hidden hand”. Rather, reality is heavily structured within political economies that have emerged out of contestations and compromises in specific historical and geographical spaces. Thus, labour markets and education and training systems have arisen, characterised by inequalities and exclusions. These specific forms profoundly influence individuals’ and communities’ views about the value of different forms of learning and working. However, they do not fully define what individuals dream, think and do. Rather, a transformed and transformative VET for Africa is possible.
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Consider the unexpected: Scaling ESD as a matter of learning
- Mickelsson, Martin, Kronlid, David O, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: Mickelsson, Martin , Kronlid, David O , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182438 , vital:43830 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1429572"
- Description: This article aims to introduce a view of scaling as a learning process. In the article we discuss the concept of ‘scaling up’ or ‘scaling’ of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) activities on the basis of how ‘scaling up’ ESD is highlighted in the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD. Drawing on a Deweyan theory of learning as processes of transactional encounters, the article presents a conceptual framework of scaling-ESD-activities-as-learning. This conceptual framework is intended to have implications for ESD policy and ESE research. The theoretical specifications and practical implications presented are results of data collected using a participatory research approach (Re-Solve) and an abductive analysis. In this article, we argue that viewing scaling as a learning process enables a nuanced notion of scaling ESD-activities. This should be seen in relation to (a) complex sustainability challenges, (b) ethical aspects, (c) a more attentive and strict approach to scaling in ESD policy and (d) addressing questions of significant importance to scaling research.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Mickelsson, Martin , Kronlid, David O , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182438 , vital:43830 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1429572"
- Description: This article aims to introduce a view of scaling as a learning process. In the article we discuss the concept of ‘scaling up’ or ‘scaling’ of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) activities on the basis of how ‘scaling up’ ESD is highlighted in the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD. Drawing on a Deweyan theory of learning as processes of transactional encounters, the article presents a conceptual framework of scaling-ESD-activities-as-learning. This conceptual framework is intended to have implications for ESD policy and ESE research. The theoretical specifications and practical implications presented are results of data collected using a participatory research approach (Re-Solve) and an abductive analysis. In this article, we argue that viewing scaling as a learning process enables a nuanced notion of scaling ESD-activities. This should be seen in relation to (a) complex sustainability challenges, (b) ethical aspects, (c) a more attentive and strict approach to scaling in ESD policy and (d) addressing questions of significant importance to scaling research.
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Expansive Social Learning, Morphogenesis and Reflexive Action in an Organization Responding to Wetland Degradation
- Lindley, David S, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: Lindley, David S , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182450 , vital:43831 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.3390/su11154230"
- Description: This study (conducted as PhD research at Rhodes University, South Africa) describes a formative interventionist research project conducted to explore factors inhibiting improved wetland management within a corporate plantation forestry context and determine if, and how, expansive social learning processes could strengthen organizational learning and development to overcome these factors. A series of formative interventionist workshops and feedback meetings took place over three years; developing new knowledge amongst staff of Company X, and improved wetland management practices. Through the expansive learning process, the tensions and contradictions that emerged became generative, supporting expansive learning that was reflectively engaged with throughout the research period. The study was== supported by an epistemological framework of cultural historical activity theory and expansive learning. Realist social theory, emerging from critical realism, with its methodological compliment the morphogenetic framework gave the research the depth of detail required to explain how the expansive learning, organizational social change, and boundary crossings that are necessary for assembling the collective were taking place. This provided ontological depth to the research. The research found that expansive learning processes, which are also social learning processes (hence we use the term ‘expansive social learning’, supported organizational learning and development for improved wetland management. Five types of changes emerged from the research: (1) Changes in structure, (2) changes in practice, (3) changes in approach, (4) changes in discourse, and (5) changes in knowledge, values, and thinking. The study was able to explain how these changes occurred via the interaction of structural emergent properties and powers; cultural emergent properties and powers; and personal emergent properties and powers of agents. It was concluded that expansive learning could provide an environmental education platform to proactively work with the sociological potential of morphogenesis to bring about future change via an open-ended participatory and reflexive expansive learning process.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lindley, David S , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182450 , vital:43831 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.3390/su11154230"
- Description: This study (conducted as PhD research at Rhodes University, South Africa) describes a formative interventionist research project conducted to explore factors inhibiting improved wetland management within a corporate plantation forestry context and determine if, and how, expansive social learning processes could strengthen organizational learning and development to overcome these factors. A series of formative interventionist workshops and feedback meetings took place over three years; developing new knowledge amongst staff of Company X, and improved wetland management practices. Through the expansive learning process, the tensions and contradictions that emerged became generative, supporting expansive learning that was reflectively engaged with throughout the research period. The study was== supported by an epistemological framework of cultural historical activity theory and expansive learning. Realist social theory, emerging from critical realism, with its methodological compliment the morphogenetic framework gave the research the depth of detail required to explain how the expansive learning, organizational social change, and boundary crossings that are necessary for assembling the collective were taking place. This provided ontological depth to the research. The research found that expansive learning processes, which are also social learning processes (hence we use the term ‘expansive social learning’, supported organizational learning and development for improved wetland management. Five types of changes emerged from the research: (1) Changes in structure, (2) changes in practice, (3) changes in approach, (4) changes in discourse, and (5) changes in knowledge, values, and thinking. The study was able to explain how these changes occurred via the interaction of structural emergent properties and powers; cultural emergent properties and powers; and personal emergent properties and powers of agents. It was concluded that expansive learning could provide an environmental education platform to proactively work with the sociological potential of morphogenesis to bring about future change via an open-ended participatory and reflexive expansive learning process.
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Formative interventionist research generating iterative mediation processes in a vocational education and training learning network
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Pesanayi, Tichaona V
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Pesanayi, Tichaona V
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370575 , vital:66356 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: This chapter addresses a research problem identified in the vocational agricultural learning system where there was a gap in vocational education and training knowledge flow from research institutions to knowledge users. The chapter develops a theoretical framework for dealing with the problem of ‘knowledge flow’ in vocational education and training settings. The problem emerges around the uptake and use of relevant research-based knowledge resources on rainwater harvesting and conservation practices for agricultural education and training focused on small-scale farmers and household food producers in South Africa. These resources, despite their contemporary relevance, were not being used in agricultural colleges or in the related agricultural learning support system. Drawing on a social ecosystemic approach to knowledge flow and mediation, the chapter surfaces five iterative mediation processes developed via a generative, formative interventionist research process over a five year period (Lotz-Sisitka et al. 2016; Pesanayi, 2019; cf. Chapter 8) that facilitated the development of a regional learning network which enabled vertical facilitatory processes and horizontal connectivities that impacted on farmers’ food production system, as well as the agricultural learning system. We illuminate key features of these as important for supporting knowledge flow within a regional social ecosystemic framework for skills development.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Pesanayi, Tichaona V
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370575 , vital:66356 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: This chapter addresses a research problem identified in the vocational agricultural learning system where there was a gap in vocational education and training knowledge flow from research institutions to knowledge users. The chapter develops a theoretical framework for dealing with the problem of ‘knowledge flow’ in vocational education and training settings. The problem emerges around the uptake and use of relevant research-based knowledge resources on rainwater harvesting and conservation practices for agricultural education and training focused on small-scale farmers and household food producers in South Africa. These resources, despite their contemporary relevance, were not being used in agricultural colleges or in the related agricultural learning support system. Drawing on a social ecosystemic approach to knowledge flow and mediation, the chapter surfaces five iterative mediation processes developed via a generative, formative interventionist research process over a five year period (Lotz-Sisitka et al. 2016; Pesanayi, 2019; cf. Chapter 8) that facilitated the development of a regional learning network which enabled vertical facilitatory processes and horizontal connectivities that impacted on farmers’ food production system, as well as the agricultural learning system. We illuminate key features of these as important for supporting knowledge flow within a regional social ecosystemic framework for skills development.
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Green skills research: Implications for systems, policy, work and learning
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Ramsarup, Presha
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Presha
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/392875 , vital:68808 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: This chapter brings the diverse contributions offered in the different sections of this book together into a pathway for new policy development research, new forms of critical skills research and ongoing engagement with education and training system development. The chapter first provides a meta-reflection on the different types of green skills research that are needed to, in combination, make a stronger impact on the national system of skills research and planning. Secondly, the chapter makes a strong argument for aligning green skills research to the Sustainable Development Goals, and their critical and contextual articulation at national level, with emphasis on working with the cross-cutting Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, Target 4.7 that motivates for governments to include a focus on education and sustainable development across the lifelong learning system in order to enable and support learning and skills for enabling the other SDGs to be realised in practice. Lastly, the chapter considers the shift in the way that work is considered when political economy meets political ecology, and we argue that work transforms towards not only a productive focus, or a social focus, but also an ontologically grounded regenerative focus, much needed at the start of the twenty-first century.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Presha
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/392875 , vital:68808 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: This chapter brings the diverse contributions offered in the different sections of this book together into a pathway for new policy development research, new forms of critical skills research and ongoing engagement with education and training system development. The chapter first provides a meta-reflection on the different types of green skills research that are needed to, in combination, make a stronger impact on the national system of skills research and planning. Secondly, the chapter makes a strong argument for aligning green skills research to the Sustainable Development Goals, and their critical and contextual articulation at national level, with emphasis on working with the cross-cutting Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, Target 4.7 that motivates for governments to include a focus on education and sustainable development across the lifelong learning system in order to enable and support learning and skills for enabling the other SDGs to be realised in practice. Lastly, the chapter considers the shift in the way that work is considered when political economy meets political ecology, and we argue that work transforms towards not only a productive focus, or a social focus, but also an ontologically grounded regenerative focus, much needed at the start of the twenty-first century.
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Green skills supply: Research from providers’ vantage point(s)
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/392895 , vital:68810 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: This chapter emerges from a need to consider the dynamics of supply side research for green skills from a providers’ vantage point. The chapter starts with the argument that environment and sustainability skills are cross institutional, cross sectoral and also inter- and transdisciplinary. The chapter notes that there are a wide variety and diversity of supply side studies that can offer perspective on the many dynamics of green skills supply and provisioning. Four cases have been selected and brought into view to illuminate the influence of context and history on designing curricula and the importance of reflexive curriculum review studies, whole institution approaches and transformative, transgressive forms of learning that move beyond the boundaries of single institutions. These studies are also brought into view to indicate the scope and depth of contextual, systemic and engaged research that is required to develop transformative orientations and perspectives on green skills supply, taking skills system supply beyond the traditional training needs analysis. The chapter argues that this is an important dimension of green skills research, if conceptualised within just transitions and transformations to sustainability.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/392895 , vital:68810 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: This chapter emerges from a need to consider the dynamics of supply side research for green skills from a providers’ vantage point. The chapter starts with the argument that environment and sustainability skills are cross institutional, cross sectoral and also inter- and transdisciplinary. The chapter notes that there are a wide variety and diversity of supply side studies that can offer perspective on the many dynamics of green skills supply and provisioning. Four cases have been selected and brought into view to illuminate the influence of context and history on designing curricula and the importance of reflexive curriculum review studies, whole institution approaches and transformative, transgressive forms of learning that move beyond the boundaries of single institutions. These studies are also brought into view to indicate the scope and depth of contextual, systemic and engaged research that is required to develop transformative orientations and perspectives on green skills supply, taking skills system supply beyond the traditional training needs analysis. The chapter argues that this is an important dimension of green skills research, if conceptualised within just transitions and transformations to sustainability.
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Mainstreaming education for sustainable development: Elaborating the role of position-practice systems using seven laminations of scale
- Agbedahin, Adesuwa V, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: Agbedahin, Adesuwa V , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182428 , vital:43829 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2019.1602975"
- Description: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4.7 proposes that Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) should be included at all levels of education, known as ‘mainstreaming’. However, there is little guidance as to how to achieve this. ESD mainstreaming demands more than simply a technical policy transfer; it also requires attention to the position-practice systems of involved agents. This article critically assesses the mainstreaming of ESD in the case of university educators in Africa who have participated in the International Training Programme on ESD in higher education. It clarifies their position-practice systems in terms of Bhaskar’s seven laminations of scale. This article therefore provides a detailed description of the ways in which agents' position-practice systems enable and constrain ESD mainstreaming. It also demonstrates that a critical realist perspective can contribute towards the understanding and achievement of transformation towards sustainability and can help to ensure the flourishing of both current and future generations.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Agbedahin, Adesuwa V , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182428 , vital:43829 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2019.1602975"
- Description: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4.7 proposes that Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) should be included at all levels of education, known as ‘mainstreaming’. However, there is little guidance as to how to achieve this. ESD mainstreaming demands more than simply a technical policy transfer; it also requires attention to the position-practice systems of involved agents. This article critically assesses the mainstreaming of ESD in the case of university educators in Africa who have participated in the International Training Programme on ESD in higher education. It clarifies their position-practice systems in terms of Bhaskar’s seven laminations of scale. This article therefore provides a detailed description of the ways in which agents' position-practice systems enable and constrain ESD mainstreaming. It also demonstrates that a critical realist perspective can contribute towards the understanding and achievement of transformation towards sustainability and can help to ensure the flourishing of both current and future generations.
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Probing the potential of social ecosystemic skills approaches for green skills planning: Perspectives from Expanded Public Works Programme studies
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/392924 , vital:68812 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in South Africa is an extensive governmental intervention to provide work opportunities. The EPWP context is a significant site of green skills emergence in South Africa, especially at the elementary occupation level. The training associated with these programmes has, to date, been largely top down, and little nuanced understanding exists on the training and learning pathways potential development for these green skills. There is a paradox between the top down approach to training, and the primarily regional implementation platforms of EPWP job opportunities and their developmental intent. To reconcile this paradox, I draw on social ecosystemic skills research to probe the potential for such a conceptual and theoretical framework for guiding green skills research for the EPWP. I share some methodologies and insights developed in EPWP green skills research projects that offer potential for providing insight into a social ecosystemic model for green skills research in EPWP programmes. Social ecosystemic models in skills research seek to develop skills development approaches that forge stronger connections between working, living and learning, foregrounding regional, place-based models for skills planning that require interfacing with vertical facilitatory mechanisms and horizontal connectivities.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/392924 , vital:68812 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in South Africa is an extensive governmental intervention to provide work opportunities. The EPWP context is a significant site of green skills emergence in South Africa, especially at the elementary occupation level. The training associated with these programmes has, to date, been largely top down, and little nuanced understanding exists on the training and learning pathways potential development for these green skills. There is a paradox between the top down approach to training, and the primarily regional implementation platforms of EPWP job opportunities and their developmental intent. To reconcile this paradox, I draw on social ecosystemic skills research to probe the potential for such a conceptual and theoretical framework for guiding green skills research for the EPWP. I share some methodologies and insights developed in EPWP green skills research projects that offer potential for providing insight into a social ecosystemic model for green skills research in EPWP programmes. Social ecosystemic models in skills research seek to develop skills development approaches that forge stronger connections between working, living and learning, foregrounding regional, place-based models for skills planning that require interfacing with vertical facilitatory mechanisms and horizontal connectivities.
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The Stinking Ontology of Sh#t in the Water: Higher Education Public Pedagogy and “Existance”?
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182754 , vital:43871 , xlink:href="http://doi.org/10.1089/sus.2019.29161"
- Description: “Existance” is not a spelling mistake. It is a word from Soweto street poet Zachariah Rapola’s poem, questioning our “stance in existence” . In the context of this essay, the poem raises the challenging perspective of our “stance in existence.” for engaging with the SDGs. The SDGs set a range of clear targets, but in doing so, they fail to give a good account of the stinking ontology of some of the issues to be dealt with, and thus lack a certain sense of realism.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182754 , vital:43871 , xlink:href="http://doi.org/10.1089/sus.2019.29161"
- Description: “Existance” is not a spelling mistake. It is a word from Soweto street poet Zachariah Rapola’s poem, questioning our “stance in existence” . In the context of this essay, the poem raises the challenging perspective of our “stance in existence.” for engaging with the SDGs. The SDGs set a range of clear targets, but in doing so, they fail to give a good account of the stinking ontology of some of the issues to be dealt with, and thus lack a certain sense of realism.
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Transitioning into work: A learning and work transitioning process perspective
- Ramsarup, Presha, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: Ramsarup, Presha , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/392944 , vital:68814 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: Due to the relative newness and contemporary emergence of environmental concerns and sustainable development challenges, policies and forms of work, little is known about the transitioning patterns from education to work. As environmental occupations are found in multiple sectors, and at multiple levels, it is necessary to understand how diversity of disciplinary foundation, historical factors and the nature of the field-based occupation as it is emerging influence transitions into work, especially for highly specialised occupations that are in high demand, such as wildlife vets or wetland ecologists, and in critical occupations that shape sustainable development for whole communities, such as sustainable development employees in municipalities. This chapter utilises a complex notion of learning pathways as neither completely individualistic nor wholly structurally determined, and positions our interest in transitions research within a framing of critical vocationalism that seeks to address not only individual experiences of transitioning, or individual agentive factors, but also structural dynamics and structural processes that can help to ‘ease’ the transitioning process in these critical areas of green skills development.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Ramsarup, Presha , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/392944 , vital:68814 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: Due to the relative newness and contemporary emergence of environmental concerns and sustainable development challenges, policies and forms of work, little is known about the transitioning patterns from education to work. As environmental occupations are found in multiple sectors, and at multiple levels, it is necessary to understand how diversity of disciplinary foundation, historical factors and the nature of the field-based occupation as it is emerging influence transitions into work, especially for highly specialised occupations that are in high demand, such as wildlife vets or wetland ecologists, and in critical occupations that shape sustainable development for whole communities, such as sustainable development employees in municipalities. This chapter utilises a complex notion of learning pathways as neither completely individualistic nor wholly structurally determined, and positions our interest in transitions research within a framing of critical vocationalism that seeks to address not only individual experiences of transitioning, or individual agentive factors, but also structural dynamics and structural processes that can help to ‘ease’ the transitioning process in these critical areas of green skills development.
- Full Text: