Sound Matters: Podcasting As A Learning And Teaching Intervention To Enhance Reading And Writing Skills
- Authors: McConnachie, Boudina E , Ntshakaza, Yamkela , McCarthy, H , Mathebula, P , Mavuso, Bonelela L , Makamure, T
- Date: 2024
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/450182 , vital:74890 , ISBN 97819912604689 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=EtcPEQAAQBAJandprintsec=frontcover#v=onepageandqandf=false
- Description: In this chapter, a group of student-researchers and their lecturer discuss their findings relating to a podcasting intervention which took place in an Ethnomusicology thirdand fourth-year class at Rhodes University in Makhanda, Eastern Cape, South Africa. As part of a larger project, in which the class explored podcasting in general, they experimented with the medium in order to ascertain in what role it could be used as a learning and teaching aid in tertiary pedagogy. Audio recordings of the lecturer discussing journal articles relating to the module were sent to students. They listened to and used them in different scenarios, orchestrated to research their effectiveness in diverse learning and teaching situations. Using a qualitative case study research design methodology, the student researchers and their lecturer present these findings through a participatory lens. They analyse the podcasts’ efficacy and limitations from various perspectives through coding responses. Finally, they discuss future usage of the medium as a way to enhance students’ understanding of academic readings.
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The nexus between COVID-19 and sexual and reproductive health of adolescents: Bringing adolescents ‘home’
- Authors: Kangaude, Godfrey , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2024
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434171 , vital:73036 , ISBN 9781032671420 , https://www.routledge.com/COVID-19-and-the-Right-to-Health-in-Africa/Durojaye-Mahadew/p/book/9781032671420?_ga=1281847179.1711584000
- Description: The devastating impact of the COVID-19 virus is well-documented. The disease was less severe among young people than in the older population. The effect on adolescents was primarily due to government measures to curb the pandemic, including lockdowns that disrupted social, education, and health services and diverted resources away from sexual and reproductive health. Young people lost or had limited access to sexual and reproductive health services and comprehensive sexuality education. They experienced the loss of financial and emotional support and parental care because of sick adults and caregivers. Young persons also lost time with friends and in developmental tasks associated with adolescence, such as exploring intimate relationships and forming identities outside the home. Government-imposed lockdowns and isolation measures revealed how being home can be problematic for young people, despite the concept of ‘home’ suggesting safety, security, and nurturance. Of particular concern were sexual and gender-based violence in the home and the increase in teenage pregnancies. In this chapter, we engage with the notion of home and how all institutions with which the adolescent interacts, especially family and school, should be a ‘home’: A place of belonging and acceptance because adolescence is a critical time for the emergence of sexual identity.
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Directive counselling undermines “safe” abortion
- Authors: Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Macleod, Catriona I , du Toit, Ryan
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434096 , vital:73031 , ISBN 97817936442138 , https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793644213/Sexual-and-Reproductive-Justice-From-the-Margins-to-the-Centre
- Description: Sexual and Reproductive Justice: From the Margins to the Centre offers new insights and perspectives on sexual and reproductive justice. The thought-provoking and diverse contributions in this volume — which range from indigenous approaches to sexual violence to gender-affirming primary and mental healthcare — extend sexual and reproductive justice scholarship, and spark critical questions, novel thinking, and ongoing dialogue in this field.
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Gender and Culture Shock at University: Perspectives of First-Year Male Students From a Public University in South Africa
- Authors: Aiseng, Kealeboga
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/453392 , vital:75250 , ISBN 9781668469613 , DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-6961-3.ch006
- Description: The chapter seeks to embark on a qualitative study with first-year male students from a public university in South Africa to understand their adjustment and adapting to university life due to challenges with gender and sexuality matters that they face. The authors is mostly interested in male students as they are the usual perpetrators of gender and sexuality offences in universities. With this chapter, the author wants to understand the experiences of these students as they transition from one world (their hometowns) to another (university campuses). Of interest in this study is that some of the students at this university come from previously disadvantaged backgrounds: villages, townships, and farmsteads. Some of them have gone through traditional rites of passage such as initiation schools; others come from patriarchal backgrounds and heteronormative backgrounds.
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Grandmothers of the sea: Stories and lessons from five Xhosa ocean elders
- Authors: Francis, Buhle , McGarry Dylan K
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433926 , vital:73010 , ISBN 9781003355199 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003355199-12/grandmothers-sea-buhle-francis-dylan-mcgarry
- Description: We surface a historical, political, spiritual, economic and cultural analysis made by five Xhosa Grandmothers based in the Eastern Cape, regarding their entangled relationship with the Ocean. A nuanced, complex relationship with the ocean and the politics of natural resource management in South Africa emerged from our interviews, as scholar-activists, with these Grandmothers, and this chapter attempts to explore how a gendered upbringing, with its associated roles and responsibilities, have created a unique relationship with the ocean that must be understood in all its nuanced and complex facets. We explore how the identities and values of these Xhosa Grandmothers are relationally entangled with the ocean and politics of South Africa, and explore the deep ecological knowledge that they hold, yet is shamelessly ignored. Through their own renderings, we unpack the rich understanding of marine species, customary rights, ocean policy and governance practices that impact, impede and complicate their lives. Working with first-hand accounts (stories translated from Xhosa), the Grandmothers provide a nuanced and brazen analysis of the status quo of ocean governance, ocean literacy and policy. They unpack what interventions are needed, and call for a response that recognises Grandmothers as central to South Africa’s wellbeing, a health that sits precariously with the complex realities of older women’s entangled and diverse vulnerabilities. Finally, the firsthand accounts and analyses made by the Grandmothers, offer a politically rigorous contribution to the field of hydrofeminism, one told in their own way, using their own idiomatic rendering, with their own metaphors and figurations.
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Introducing VET Africa 4.0
- 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.
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Social ecosystem for skills research inclusivity, relationality and informality
- Authors: Metelerkamp, Luke , Monk, David
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434871 , vital:73112 , ISBN 978-1529224634 , https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/transitioning-vocational-education-and-training-in-africa
- Description: Eighty per cent of Africans work in the informal economy. In this chapter, we consider the highly informal, unregulated and often marginalized contexts that form the majority experience of living, working and learning. Situating the praxis of horizontal learning within these very normal contexts of informality demands renewed analysis into the questions of how horizontal learning is facilitated, by whom, with what resources, and why. Following on from Chapter 4, we develop our approach to social ecosystems further through two empirical case studies offering distinct lenses on to the informal sector. In Gulu, we consider the current dynamics of learning and inclusion among informal traders at a local market and in a set of food and clothing initiatives; in Alice, we reflect on an intentional effort on behalf of established, formal institutions to explore new approaches to teaching and learning through support of expansive informal learning in the context of food growing. While our focus across the book is on the range of labour markets and livelihood opportunities, it is appropriate to start our empirical chapters by focusing on the labour market of the majority.
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Supporting Education for Sustainable Development through an Online Global Forum for Teacher Educators
- Authors: Schudel, Ingrid J , Down, Lorna , McKeown, Rosalyn , Baumann, Stefan , Petersen, Andrew , Urenje, Shepherd
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/435283 , vital:73144 , ISBN 9781538153840 , https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538153833/At-School-in-the-World-Developing-Globally-Engaged-Teachers
- Description: The Online Global Forum on Education for Sustainable De-velopment (ESD) for Teacher Educators was launched in 2019 by colleagues from three continents who formed a group called ESD Innovate (hereinafter also referred to as Forum founders). ESD Innovate is made up of three African representatives, two European, and two from North America and the Caribbean. The group was formed during the Inter-national Network of Teacher Education Institutions (INTEI) conference in 2016. In discussions at this conference, we (the authors of this chapter and those who formed ESD In-novate) heard the need for ongoing professional develop-ment in ESD for teacher educators. Professional develop-ment programs regarding ESD are available for in-service teachers in some regions of the world, but few are available for teacher educators, especially initiatives designed for sus-tained engagement. Thus, the Forum aims to meet the need for continuing professional development of teacher educa-tors with an ESD focus. Additionally, the Forum was de-signed to bring teacher educators together from all over the world to facilitate collaboration between and among teacher educators and their student teachers in an intellectual dia-logue on the response of teacher education to the Sustaina-ble Development Goals (United Nations, 2015). At the same time, we aimed to share local and global experiences on the realization of relevance and education quality through ESD.
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The Emancipatory Nature of Transformative Agency
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Thifhulufhelwi, Reuben , Chikunda, Charles , Mponwana, Maletje
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436175 , vital:73232 , ISBN 9781009153799 , https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009153799
- Description: Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) research has established an impressive body of scholarship that advances social understanding of human agency in the transformation of society, much of which is captured in contributions to this volume (cf. Hopwood (Chapter 15); Sannino (Chapter 2); Stetsenko (Chapter 3); Bal and Bird Bear (Chapter 8)). The main tenets of this work, building on the historical legacy of Vygotsky and Marx, affirm that humans are not passive recipients of external stimuli or influences but are active co-creators of the world (s) they inhabit. They are capable of using and producing cultural tools to take power over their own volitional action (s)(cf. Sannino, 2015, Chap-ter 2 of this volume; Hopwood and Gottshalk, 2017). Vygotsky’s major legacy in coming to understand transformative agency is that the cultural tools produced and used as mediational means are critical in the emergence of transformative agency (Sannino, 2015, 2020, Chapter 2 of this volume; Stetsenko, 2019; Hopwood, Chapter 15 of this volume) and thus in the transformation of human activity. As shown by Sannino (2015, 2020), such tools offer stimulus for volitional action that can break paralysis, especially when conflicts of motives are experienced.
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The Role of the University as Mediator in a Skills Ecosystem Approach to VET
- 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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Tragic Optimism: A Psychobiography of Morgan Richard Tsvangirai.
- Authors: Harry, Tinashe T , van Niekerk, Roelf
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434439 , vital:73060 , ISBN 978-3-031-28826-5 , https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-28827-2_5
- Description: For many Zimbabweans, Morgan Richard Tsvangirai (1952–2018) became the face of courage and hope during his political career. Tsvangirai was subjected to and witnessed political violence, physical abuse, brutality, emotional humiliation, unlawful detentions, and persecution. He challenged the ruling party in Zimbabwe, and his leadership gave many people hope for the future. In the context of living in a colonial era, poverty, and having to endure the brutality of the Mugabe era, he lived a meaningful life that saw him becoming a Prime Minister of Zimbabwe (2009–2013). This single-case study explores and describes Tsvangirai’s life and interprets it in terms of Frankl’s existential theory. More specifically, Tsvangirai’s life is interpreted from the perspective of Frankl’s three triads, the fundamental, meaning, and tragic triads, as well as the noetic dimension. Tsvangirai was selected through purposive sampling based on his important role in Zimbabwean politics. The primary source of data was biographical and autobiographical publications. The findings indicate that Tsvangirai shifted emphasis within the meaning triad in living a meaningful life and that he was able to use the human capacity of self-distancing/detachment and self-transcendence to find meaning in his life. This chapter sheds light on how individuals make sense of their circumstances and search for meaning and purpose in adverse conditions. It also contributes towards the development of psychobiographical research among non-WEIRD samples.
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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.
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Analysing the Impact of Extended Curriculum Programmes: Implications for Theory, Design and Practice
- Authors: Boughey, Chrissie
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434453 , vital:73063 , ISBN 9781991201737 , https://africansunmedia.store.it.si/ZA/book/extended-curriculum-programmes-challenges-and-opportunities/1199327
- Description: The introduction of ECPs in South African Universities is seen by many as South Africa’s key strategy for addressing the problem of poor patterns of student success and has its basis on the uncontested acceptance that an extended study duration may be necessary to bring some categories of learners to a level of parity with the readiness expectations of their course of study. Even so, this transformative strategic imperative has been plagued by a range of challenges that include poor systems readiness; poor selection mechanisms in the identification of ECP students; poor numeracy and literacy amongst students, and indifferent teacher involvement in ECPs. This volume offers a rare insight into many of the above-recognised challenges and in so doing provides critical matter for thought for educators within the higher education sector.
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Developing Relationships for Community-Based Research at Rhodes University: Values, Principles and Challenges
- Authors: Hornby, Diana , Maistry, Savathrie M
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433524 , vital:72981 , ISBN 978-3-030-86401-9 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86402-6_6
- Description: Post-apartheid education policy in South Africa mandates that universities should become more responsive to the socio-economic development of the country, positioning community engagement as a core function of higher education. Community engagement in all its forms, and particularly in the form of community-based research, should develop the social responsibility of both students and the institution by providing opportunities for partnering in community-based projects to promote the social good, thus narrowing the gap between universities and communities. The Community Engagement Division at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, supported by the highest level of management of the institution, was fully aware that removal of the ‘ivory tower’ image was a herculean task. Thus, they developed a set of values and principles to guide the establishment of community partnerships with the community the university serves. This chapter explains these values and principles, using the Reviving Schools community engagement initiative as an example. It discusses some of the challenges experienced and how they were overcome to build research relationships and a sense of ‘community’ between Rhodes University and its external partners in Makhanda.
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Digitalisation and Transformative Learning for Sustainable Futures in Rural Africa Leaving No One Behind
- Authors: Shetye, Nyanta , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Albrecht, Eike , Durr, Sarah , Marx, Dirk , Chirambo, Dumisani , Metelerkamp, Luke , van Zyl-Bulitta, Verena
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/435263 , vital:73143 , ISBN 9781928502241 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003274322-14/digitalisation-transformative-learning-sustainable-futures-rural-africa-niyanta-shetye-heila-lotz-sisitka-eike-albrecht-sarah-durr-dirk-marx-dumisani-chirambo-luke-metelerkamp-verena-van-zyl-bulitta
- Description: This chapter assesses the use of Information and Telecommunication Technologies (ICTs) for social and community learning to achieve sustainable development in rural communities in Africa. It focuses on new and emerging trends in the cooperation between the African Union and European Union (AU–EU) and links two thematic areas; namely green transitions and digital transformations. The chapter highlights low-cost and effective digital learning solutions. It is based on a literature review and cases that provide insight into potential AU–EU cooperation and the “leave no one behind” agenda. The chapter argues that in addition to digital technology transfer, innovation and investments are needed in building a learning-centred support for green transitioning and digital cooperation. Hence, we focus on transformative learning opportunities and informal Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). In response to ICTs becoming a catalyst for such a transformation, we seek insights into how constructive AU–EU cooperation and co-learning can pave ways for societal transformations, particularly in rural communities.
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Household dietary patterns and food security challenges in Peri-Urban South Africa: A reflection of high unemployment in the wake of rising food prices
- Authors: Chakona, Gamuchirai
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433943 , vital:73013 , ISBN 978-3-030-93072-1 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93072-1_11
- Description: Urbanization is one of the major social changes sweeping the globe, with rapid growth of the urban population and stagnating growth of the rural population, especially in developing regions (UN-Habitat, 2020). In subSaharan Africa, rapid urbanization and poverty are the major fundamental development challenges that are perpetuating and deepening the crisis of food and nutrition insecurity in urban areas (Battersby, 2012). Many people living in urban areas face under-nutrition, mainly due to their lack of income rather than to a lack of capacity to produce food (Satterthwaite et al., 2010). The health and nutritional status of urban populations with very low incomes are at risk from rising prices in staple foods. This became evident with the rising hunger among urban populations after the food price rises in 2007 and the first half of 2008 (Cohen and Garrett, 2009). In South Africa, poverty, unemployment and high food prices are dominant and influence dietary change, which subsequently increases urban food insecurity and malnutrition (Battersby, 2012).
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Interdisciplinarity requires careful stewardship of powerful knowledge
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , de Bie G J
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434487 , vital:73068 , ISBN 9780367518707 , https://www.routledge.com/Enhancing-Science-Education-Exploring-Knowledge-Practices-with-Legitimation/Blackie-Adendorff-Mouton/p/book/9780367518707#:~:text=The%20book%20introduces%20Legitimation%20Code,grasp%20difficult%20and%20dense%20concepts
- Description: This book helps meet an urgent need for theorized, accessible and discipline-sensitive publications to assist science, technology, engineering and mathematics educators. The book introduces Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and demonstrates how it can be used to improve teaching and learning in tertiary courses across the sciences. LCT provides a suite of tools which science educators can employ in order to help their students grasp difficult and dense concepts. The chapters cover a broad range of subjects, including biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics, as well as different curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices. This is a crucial resource for any science educator who wants to better understand and improve their teaching.
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Lalela uLwandle: An experiment in plural governance discussions
- Authors: Erwin, Kira , Pereira, Taryn , McGarry, Dylan K , Coppen, Neil
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436145 , vital:73230 , ISBN 978-3-030-99347-4 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99347-4_20
- Description: Symbolic, cultural and spiritual meanings of the oceans, whilst different depending on positionality, are important aspects of understanding humans’ relationship with the oceans. Currently in South Africa, cultural, social and spiritual meanings of the oceans are given little consideration in the rush for the Blue Economy and ocean governance frame-works. Neither are they widely considered in environmental conservation and management. This chapter argues that for inclusive ocean governance it is necessary to create more equitable listening forums for how different epistemologies makes sense of the oceans. The chapter draws from the research-based theatre project called Lalela uLwandle performed along the KwaZulu-Natal Coast. The chapter explores what is lost when knowledge systems are conceived as incommensurable and how this serves hegemonic interests. Importantly, it also explores what might be gained when we embody more fluid and plural epistemologies that can mould, expand, broaden and enrich our decision-making process on the ocean.
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Mitigating Climate Change: The Influence of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi on Maize Production and Food Security
- Authors: Maússe-Sitoe, Silvia N D , Dames, Joanna F
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/453465 , vital:75256 , ISBN 978-1-83768-091-7 , https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/84486
- Description: Anthropogenic activities have contributed to the increased atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, which are an important contributor to climate change. From 1940 to 2004, global emissions increased by 70%, and projections suggest a continual increase by 2050 due to agriculture, forestry, and other land uses. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are ubiquitous in undisturbed soils and form a symbiotic relationship with various plants. The relationship that enhances nutrient uptake and plant growth, among other benefits, is well known. Several soil management practices employed in agriculture adversely affect the symbiosis. Zea mays (maize) provides 30% of total caloric intake to 4.5 billion people worldwide and is an important staple crop, vulnerable to climate change. Higher temperatures can result in increased water demand, while changes in precipitation can result in crop failure. AM fungi can be applied as inoculants to maize. Resulting in improved plant growth, yield, and nutrient uptake and providing superior food quality properties, such as increased antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. AM fungi are considered a crucial biotechnological tool in crop production. This review illustrates their essential role in sustainable maize production and emphasizes the need to maintain AM fungal communities in the soil to mitigate the effects of climate change.
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Planetary Urgency, Researcher Reflexivity and ESE Research: Questions Arising from an Initial Exploration of Goethean-inspired Phenomenology
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437541 , vital:73392 , ISBN
- Description: Many of the theoretical and methodological frameworks that are currently influential in Environment and Sustainability Education (ESE) research in South Africa foreground interventionist research, activism, causal explanation, critique, social-ecological transformation and decoloniality. These frameworks guide ESE researchers to design, implement and report on research in particular ways, hence influencing how social-ecological phenomena, learning and social change are understood and enacted. In this essay, I present some exploratory perspectives on the relevance and potential contribution of phenomenological approaches to ESE research, especially Goethean inspired observation.
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