Strangers “at home”: gay, lesbian and bisexual students’ strategies for resisting heteronormativity in university residence life
- Munyuki, Chipo L, Vincent, Louise
- Authors: Munyuki, Chipo L , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141680 , vital:37996 , DOI: 10.20853/32-3-2521
- Description: Higher education in post-apartheid South Africa has been concerned with the establishment of non-discriminatory institutions. However, research continues to highlight various experiences of exclusionary practices across universities in South Africa. In this article, we demonstrate the various coping mechanisms that some students who self-identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual in the university residences adopt to deal with the exclusionary practices that the dominant heteronormative culture of the institution (re)produces which positions them as “sexual strangers” within the institutional “home”. We adopt Vangelisti and Crumley’s (1998) three categories of behaviour namely “acquiescence” which we term here as endeavours to “fit in”, “invulnerability” which we identify as “keeping one’s distance”, “verbal active” as “voicing” and a fourth category we identify as “turning the tables on heteronormativity” in our discussion. We also highlight the various forms of responses that the institution adopts in its attempts to create a conducive environment for all.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Munyuki, Chipo L , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141680 , vital:37996 , DOI: 10.20853/32-3-2521
- Description: Higher education in post-apartheid South Africa has been concerned with the establishment of non-discriminatory institutions. However, research continues to highlight various experiences of exclusionary practices across universities in South Africa. In this article, we demonstrate the various coping mechanisms that some students who self-identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual in the university residences adopt to deal with the exclusionary practices that the dominant heteronormative culture of the institution (re)produces which positions them as “sexual strangers” within the institutional “home”. We adopt Vangelisti and Crumley’s (1998) three categories of behaviour namely “acquiescence” which we term here as endeavours to “fit in”, “invulnerability” which we identify as “keeping one’s distance”, “verbal active” as “voicing” and a fourth category we identify as “turning the tables on heteronormativity” in our discussion. We also highlight the various forms of responses that the institution adopts in its attempts to create a conducive environment for all.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Ties that bind: the ambiguous role played by social capital in black working class first-generation South African students’ negotiation of university life
- Vincent, Louise, Hlatshwayo, M
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Hlatshwayo, M
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141722 , vital:37999 , DOI: 10.20853/32-3-2538
- Description: In this article we examine the ambiguous role that social capital plays in first generation Black working class South African students’ negotiation of entry into an elite higher education institutional environment. First generation student experiences have a particular relevance in South Africa where student enrolment increased by 193 000 between 1993 and 2004, with many of the new entrants first-generation students. South African research on first-generation working class Black students has focused on the low proportion of these students who reach university at all and among those who do enter university, the significant number who perform poorly or drop out before completing their degrees. The role played by social capital (social networks, close friends, associations, clubs and other affiliations) in these students’ experiences of negotiating their entry into university has been little explored.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Hlatshwayo, M
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141722 , vital:37999 , DOI: 10.20853/32-3-2538
- Description: In this article we examine the ambiguous role that social capital plays in first generation Black working class South African students’ negotiation of entry into an elite higher education institutional environment. First generation student experiences have a particular relevance in South Africa where student enrolment increased by 193 000 between 1993 and 2004, with many of the new entrants first-generation students. South African research on first-generation working class Black students has focused on the low proportion of these students who reach university at all and among those who do enter university, the significant number who perform poorly or drop out before completing their degrees. The role played by social capital (social networks, close friends, associations, clubs and other affiliations) in these students’ experiences of negotiating their entry into university has been little explored.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
“The scales were peeled from my eyes”: South African academics coming to consciousness to become agents of change
- Vincent, Louise, Idahosa, Grace E
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Idahosa, Grace E
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141759 , vital:38002 , DOI: 10.18848/2327-0055/cgp/v15i04/13-28
- Description: For postcolonial societies, addressing the impact of the previous oppressive system in a bid to attain equity and social justice necessitates transformation in various spheres and sectors of society. As cradles of learning, research, and knowledge development, higher education institutions are one such sphere with a particular duty to contribute to, and embody, social transformation. However, almost 25 years after the country’s first democratic elections, the institutional cultures and structures of many South African universities still bear the imprimatur of past inequities. Existing research suggests that the success of transformation policies is influenced by the extent to which individual staff members exercise agency to effect transformative practices. But what determines whether an individual becomes an agent of change? This paper draws on the experiences of ten academic staff members who have taken actions that can be said to have contributed to shifting in important ways relations and/or practices at one university in South Africa. It adopts a hermeneutic phenomenological lens to understand the lived experiences of participants of having agency and undertaking transformative actions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Idahosa, Grace E
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141759 , vital:38002 , DOI: 10.18848/2327-0055/cgp/v15i04/13-28
- Description: For postcolonial societies, addressing the impact of the previous oppressive system in a bid to attain equity and social justice necessitates transformation in various spheres and sectors of society. As cradles of learning, research, and knowledge development, higher education institutions are one such sphere with a particular duty to contribute to, and embody, social transformation. However, almost 25 years after the country’s first democratic elections, the institutional cultures and structures of many South African universities still bear the imprimatur of past inequities. Existing research suggests that the success of transformation policies is influenced by the extent to which individual staff members exercise agency to effect transformative practices. But what determines whether an individual becomes an agent of change? This paper draws on the experiences of ten academic staff members who have taken actions that can be said to have contributed to shifting in important ways relations and/or practices at one university in South Africa. It adopts a hermeneutic phenomenological lens to understand the lived experiences of participants of having agency and undertaking transformative actions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
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