Action research case studies of participatory materials development in two community contexts in Zambia
- Authors: Lupele, Justin Kalaba
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: Community development -- Zambia -- Case studies Environmental education -- Zambia -- Case studies Sustainable development -- Zambia -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1417 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003298
- Description: This research reports on two action research case studies of participatory materials development in two rural community contexts in Zambia, namely Chiawa and Nalusanga. It aims to explore and articulate the relationships between community-based environmental education and participatory materials development in the WWF Zambia Education Project context; clarify participatory materials development processes by identifying the roles of different ‘actors’ in these processes and identify and analyse the contextual and other factors that may influence development and use of environmental education materials in rural communities. These aims were explored by means of a number of action research cycles of inquiry in the two communities. The study also articulates the significance of considering ambivalent globalising influences such as international conferences, debates, overseas development aid, national policies and how these shape and influence materials development work in a local context. In order to gain more insight into the local contexts, I developed contextual profiles on the two communities. These capture the contextual factors that influenced the participatory materials development processes. They include issues such as language, ethnicity, literacy, power relations and the local social economy, amongst others. Although this study has been predominately guided by the socially critical orientation to research and education, I have drawn on aspects of other research orientations. I have also explored some of the emerging critiques of the socially critical orientation. The findings of this study reveal the different roles participants can play in participatory materials development; participatory materials development processes as a learning process; the dynamics of participation in an African context; the role of language and literacy in materials development; the need for open-ended process models of learning amongst adult learners and the importance of merging expert and local knowledge in participatory materials development. This study opens up possibilities for further exploration of participatory materials development processes within the WWF ZEP context and beyond.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
- Authors: Lupele, Justin Kalaba
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: Community development -- Zambia -- Case studies Environmental education -- Zambia -- Case studies Sustainable development -- Zambia -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1417 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003298
- Description: This research reports on two action research case studies of participatory materials development in two rural community contexts in Zambia, namely Chiawa and Nalusanga. It aims to explore and articulate the relationships between community-based environmental education and participatory materials development in the WWF Zambia Education Project context; clarify participatory materials development processes by identifying the roles of different ‘actors’ in these processes and identify and analyse the contextual and other factors that may influence development and use of environmental education materials in rural communities. These aims were explored by means of a number of action research cycles of inquiry in the two communities. The study also articulates the significance of considering ambivalent globalising influences such as international conferences, debates, overseas development aid, national policies and how these shape and influence materials development work in a local context. In order to gain more insight into the local contexts, I developed contextual profiles on the two communities. These capture the contextual factors that influenced the participatory materials development processes. They include issues such as language, ethnicity, literacy, power relations and the local social economy, amongst others. Although this study has been predominately guided by the socially critical orientation to research and education, I have drawn on aspects of other research orientations. I have also explored some of the emerging critiques of the socially critical orientation. The findings of this study reveal the different roles participants can play in participatory materials development; participatory materials development processes as a learning process; the dynamics of participation in an African context; the role of language and literacy in materials development; the need for open-ended process models of learning amongst adult learners and the importance of merging expert and local knowledge in participatory materials development. This study opens up possibilities for further exploration of participatory materials development processes within the WWF ZEP context and beyond.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
In-betweenness: a postcolonial exploration of sociocultural intergenerational learning through cattle as a medium of cultural expression in Mpembeni, KwaZulu-Natal
- Authors: Masuku, Lynette Sibongile
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Postcolonialism , Environmental education -- South Africa , Community education -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Non-formal education -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Agricultural education -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Livestock -- Handling -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Cattle -- Handling -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Cattle herding -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Life skills -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68181 , vital:29213
- Description: This case study was conducted in a small rural community called Mpembeni, in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. It was motivated by my observation of high levels of competence in ‘cattle knowledge’ amongst children coupled with a simultaneous failure at school. I view schools as integral parts of the community and consider them as being influenced by the community, which they in turn influence. This study set out to understand that which embodied informal learning in home/pasture-based contexts as well as formalised learning processes in schools. I used Sociocultural theory as the most congruent of educational theories to surface and illuminate the intergenerational learning processes that were taking place in the area. This warranted my use of research investigation methods that could, in non-intrusive ways, expose the everyday community practices that related to cattle as a particular medium of cultural expression. Ethnography, sourced from anthropology, aided by ethnomethods, was not only compatible with my study and the way in which I wanted to write out the research report, but also with my educational theory and its counterhegemonic intents. To understand the colonialities that framed the discord that embodied home and school as learning contexts, I used postcolonial theory, not only as a lens but as a counterhegemonic response. This theory also informed my research methodology as well as afforded me the reflexivity tools for an examination of my own intergenerational learning and the relational identities of myself as ‘Other’ in the lives of the research participants. It further facilitated the exploration of the potential for potential hybrid third spaces within the bubbling meeting nodes of the socio-cultural context of school and home/pasture based settings of learning. I observed cattle herding related practices, interviewed children, their parents and/or carers, dipping tank managers, livestock inspectors, community elders and members. I also analysed some of the written and unwritten content that made up the formal and informal based learning processes and reviewed some of the most recent South African Curriculum Statements and related texts on the representations of cattle. I sought views from teachers on their interactions with the people of Mpembeni, whose children they taught. I also explored axes of tension, silences and presences on anything related to cattle in schools. I argue and make a case for the development of thought by African scholars to advance Africa’s education rather than aid mimicry and the importation of theories of little congruence and relevance to the African context and Africa’s future. The study has made some contributions to new knowledge. This is in its exploration of sociocultural intergenerational methods and techniques that are employed for learning in community contexts, highlighting the importance of surfacing and understanding of children’s knowledge and experiences. The study has gone further to deliberate the in-betweenness of school and home learning environments, highlighting and unsilencing silenced, peripherised, new, old, considered irrelevant in the past, context and time congruent and liberatory knowledges. I propose that the knowledges located in these cleavages of difference be utilised to transform and create learning bridges between home and school environments. I propose that those ways of knowing that see others as nothings, be exposed and unlearned. Methods of learning that naturally unfold at home could be replicated at school with a recognition of the intergenerational methods, techniques, practices and the learning values in a critically constructive manner that narrows difference and othering.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Masuku, Lynette Sibongile
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Postcolonialism , Environmental education -- South Africa , Community education -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Non-formal education -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Agricultural education -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Livestock -- Handling -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Cattle -- Handling -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Cattle herding -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Life skills -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68181 , vital:29213
- Description: This case study was conducted in a small rural community called Mpembeni, in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. It was motivated by my observation of high levels of competence in ‘cattle knowledge’ amongst children coupled with a simultaneous failure at school. I view schools as integral parts of the community and consider them as being influenced by the community, which they in turn influence. This study set out to understand that which embodied informal learning in home/pasture-based contexts as well as formalised learning processes in schools. I used Sociocultural theory as the most congruent of educational theories to surface and illuminate the intergenerational learning processes that were taking place in the area. This warranted my use of research investigation methods that could, in non-intrusive ways, expose the everyday community practices that related to cattle as a particular medium of cultural expression. Ethnography, sourced from anthropology, aided by ethnomethods, was not only compatible with my study and the way in which I wanted to write out the research report, but also with my educational theory and its counterhegemonic intents. To understand the colonialities that framed the discord that embodied home and school as learning contexts, I used postcolonial theory, not only as a lens but as a counterhegemonic response. This theory also informed my research methodology as well as afforded me the reflexivity tools for an examination of my own intergenerational learning and the relational identities of myself as ‘Other’ in the lives of the research participants. It further facilitated the exploration of the potential for potential hybrid third spaces within the bubbling meeting nodes of the socio-cultural context of school and home/pasture based settings of learning. I observed cattle herding related practices, interviewed children, their parents and/or carers, dipping tank managers, livestock inspectors, community elders and members. I also analysed some of the written and unwritten content that made up the formal and informal based learning processes and reviewed some of the most recent South African Curriculum Statements and related texts on the representations of cattle. I sought views from teachers on their interactions with the people of Mpembeni, whose children they taught. I also explored axes of tension, silences and presences on anything related to cattle in schools. I argue and make a case for the development of thought by African scholars to advance Africa’s education rather than aid mimicry and the importation of theories of little congruence and relevance to the African context and Africa’s future. The study has made some contributions to new knowledge. This is in its exploration of sociocultural intergenerational methods and techniques that are employed for learning in community contexts, highlighting the importance of surfacing and understanding of children’s knowledge and experiences. The study has gone further to deliberate the in-betweenness of school and home learning environments, highlighting and unsilencing silenced, peripherised, new, old, considered irrelevant in the past, context and time congruent and liberatory knowledges. I propose that the knowledges located in these cleavages of difference be utilised to transform and create learning bridges between home and school environments. I propose that those ways of knowing that see others as nothings, be exposed and unlearned. Methods of learning that naturally unfold at home could be replicated at school with a recognition of the intergenerational methods, techniques, practices and the learning values in a critically constructive manner that narrows difference and othering.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Representation and use of indigenous heritage constructs : implications for the quality and relevance of heritage education in post colonial southern Africa
- Authors: Zazu, Cryton
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Albany Museum (Grahamstown, South Africa) Cultural property -- Conservation and restoration -- Research -- Africa, Southern Great Zimbabwe (Extinct city) Indigenous peoples -- Material culture -- Africa, Southern Anthropological museums and collections -- Management -- Research -- Africa, Southern Cultural property -- Management -- Research Ethnoscience -- Study and teaching -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1407 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002015
- Description: This study explores representation and use of indigenous heritage constructs with a view to identifying implications thereof for the quality and relevance of heritage education practices in post colonial southern Africa. Framed within a critical hermeneutic research paradigm under-laboured by critical realist ontology, the study was conducted using a multiple case study research design. The data collection protocol was three-phased, starting with a process of contextual profiling, within which insights were gained into discourses shaping the constitution and orientation of heritage education practices at the Albany Museum in South Africa, the Great Zimbabwe Monument in Zimbabwe and the Supa Ngwao Museum in Botswana. The second phase of data collection entailed modelling workshops in which educators engaged in discussion around the status of heritage education in post apartheid South Africa. This highlighted, through modelled lessons, some of the tensions, challenges and implications for working with notions of social transformation and inclusivity in heritage education. The third phase of data collection involved in-depth interviews. Twelve purposively selected research participants were interviewed between 2010 and 2011. Data generated across the study was processed and subjected to different levels of critical discourse analysis. Besides noting how heritage education in post colonial southern Africa is poorly framed and under-researched, this study revealed that current forms of representing indigenous heritage constructs are influenced more by socio-political discourses than the need to protect and conserve local heritage resources. The study also noted that the observed heritage education practices are oriented more towards addressing issues related to marginalisation and alienation of indigenous cultures and practices, than enhancing learners’ agency to manage and utilise local heritage resources in a more sustainable ways. Based on these findings the study recommends re-positioning heritage education within the framework of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). ESD acknowledges both issues of social justice and the dialectical interplay between nature and culture; as such, it may allow for representation and use of indigenous heritage constructs in ways that expand current political orientations to include sustainability as an additional objective of heritage education. Given that little research focusing on heritage education has been undertaken within southern Africa, the findings of this study provide a basis upon which future research may emerge.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Zazu, Cryton
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Albany Museum (Grahamstown, South Africa) Cultural property -- Conservation and restoration -- Research -- Africa, Southern Great Zimbabwe (Extinct city) Indigenous peoples -- Material culture -- Africa, Southern Anthropological museums and collections -- Management -- Research -- Africa, Southern Cultural property -- Management -- Research Ethnoscience -- Study and teaching -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1407 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002015
- Description: This study explores representation and use of indigenous heritage constructs with a view to identifying implications thereof for the quality and relevance of heritage education practices in post colonial southern Africa. Framed within a critical hermeneutic research paradigm under-laboured by critical realist ontology, the study was conducted using a multiple case study research design. The data collection protocol was three-phased, starting with a process of contextual profiling, within which insights were gained into discourses shaping the constitution and orientation of heritage education practices at the Albany Museum in South Africa, the Great Zimbabwe Monument in Zimbabwe and the Supa Ngwao Museum in Botswana. The second phase of data collection entailed modelling workshops in which educators engaged in discussion around the status of heritage education in post apartheid South Africa. This highlighted, through modelled lessons, some of the tensions, challenges and implications for working with notions of social transformation and inclusivity in heritage education. The third phase of data collection involved in-depth interviews. Twelve purposively selected research participants were interviewed between 2010 and 2011. Data generated across the study was processed and subjected to different levels of critical discourse analysis. Besides noting how heritage education in post colonial southern Africa is poorly framed and under-researched, this study revealed that current forms of representing indigenous heritage constructs are influenced more by socio-political discourses than the need to protect and conserve local heritage resources. The study also noted that the observed heritage education practices are oriented more towards addressing issues related to marginalisation and alienation of indigenous cultures and practices, than enhancing learners’ agency to manage and utilise local heritage resources in a more sustainable ways. Based on these findings the study recommends re-positioning heritage education within the framework of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). ESD acknowledges both issues of social justice and the dialectical interplay between nature and culture; as such, it may allow for representation and use of indigenous heritage constructs in ways that expand current political orientations to include sustainability as an additional objective of heritage education. Given that little research focusing on heritage education has been undertaken within southern Africa, the findings of this study provide a basis upon which future research may emerge.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Waste management knowledge, its production, recontextualisation and circulation in Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) training programmes
- Authors: Giqwa, Nomfundiso Louisa
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Refuse and refuse disposal -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , South Africa. Expanded Public Works Programme , Refuse and refuse disposal -- Employees -- Training of -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , South Africa. Department of Environmental Affairs , Knowledge, Theory of , Knowledge, Sociology of
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63729 , vital:28478
- Description: This study set out to investigate the structuring, recontextualisation and circulation of waste management knowledge in the South African environmental Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) Waste Management Projects. In this thesis these projects also referred to as the Working on Waste (WoW) programme or focus area within the Environmental Protection and Infrastructure Programme (EPIP) hosted by the National Department of Environmental Affairs. Expanded Public Work Programmes are a strategy used by governments to address unemployment and in South Africa; the programmes also seek to address a need for skills development. In this study, the focus is on EPWP waste management knowledge, training programmes and activities only. With waste management knowledge as the core interest, the focus of the investigation was on knowledge circulation of waste management via informal (participation in the project) and formal training of workers at Level 2 National Qualifications Framework (NQF). The study started by firstly investigating what waste management knowledge is produced in the Field of Production via scientific research and policy. It then studied how this waste management knowledge is recontextualised into qualifications and skills programmes designed in the official recontextualising field and learning materials and training programmes designed and offered in the professional recontextualising field. The study also focused on the knowledge of workers and their experience of training in the EPWP workplaces, with an emphasis on rural workplaces. This is where the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) is placing emphasis on training for job creation, empowerment and skills development, and it is also where a number of EPWP Working on Waste programmes are being implemented. The aim was also to develop an understanding of how knowledge circulates amongst learners in training sessions and in workplaces. To do this, I drew on Bernstein’s theory of the pedagogical device which provides theoretical lenses and a language of description to explain how knowledge is recontextualised from the field of production to the field of reproduction. To investigate the structuring of this knowledge by official and pedagogical recontextualisers, I drew on the work of Maton, who offers a Legitimation Code Theory to explain the principles structuring knowledge, of which I used specialisation and semantics (two of his suite of knowledge structuring principles) for analysis. The questions that guided the study throughout were: 1. What is the structure of legitimate knowledge and knowers in waste management? 2. What are the underlying principles underpinning knowledge and knowers in waste management? 3. How is the knowledge recontextualised in waste management training qualifications, documents and manuals for worker training at NQF Level 2? 4. How is the knowledge reproduced and evaluated in the waste management EPWP training activities (formal) and workplaces (informal)? 5. How does waste management knowledge circulate amongst the workers in the EPWP training activities and workplaces? For this study I used the case study method, focusing only on one field or DEA EPWP focus area (waste management) and one programme (EPWP Working on Waste), looking in more depth at two cases (two similar types of projects) within the EPWP Working on Waste programme, though they are situated in different areas and though I could only carry through observations of actual workplace training in one of the two sites due to contextual circumstances. The first project was situated in the Amathole District Municipality while the second one was situated in the Chris Hani District Municipality, both of which are in the rural towns of the former Transkei region in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. This area has been at the forefront in accessing funding for these projects due to the level of poverty surrounding these towns and the inability of the local government sphere to deliver on its mandate in the region. Data was collected through document analysis, questionnaires, interviews and observations. Documents analysed were research documents produced by researchers at the level of production as well as legal frameworks guiding waste management processes in this country. Qualifications and Unit Standards at Level 2, as well as training materials designed by providers were analysed. Training in one of the projects was observed and workers in both sites were interviewed twice. The main finding of the study is that waste management knowledge is characterised by interdisciplinarity and a strong epistemic relation which emphasises procedural and technical forms of knowledge. The study found that the knowledge constructed in the field, as well as the policies, qualifications and training programmes are all consequently characterised by a strong epistemic code (ER+) and a weak social relations code (SR-). The study also identified a ‘code clash’ with the knowledge of workers in rural towns whose knowledge and experience of waste management was found to reflect a strong social relation (SR+) and weak epistemic code (ER-), a pattern which was traced back to a similar code in waste management knowledge at home and school (i.e. workers’ prior knowledge and learning experiences). This created difficulties for the trainers who sought to use strategies of descending from the abstract to the concrete in various ‘descending’ semantic waves that tended to move from high levels of semantic density (SD+) to lower levels of semantic density (SD-) as the training provider sought to contextualise a range of concepts. This was the main strategy identified for mediating waste management knowledge reflecting a dominant pattern of SD+/SG- to SD-/SG+ (with SG meaning semantic gravity). This shows that the trainer seldom started mediating concepts from the basis of workers’ prior knowledge and experience and observations showed little responsiveness from workers resulting from this strategy. Despite this, the study found that workers did develop an improved understanding of specialised waste management knowledge over time, especially through observing and doing more complex tasks in the workplace. The study offers a model for addressing the pedagogical difficulty identified around the code clash, and suggests that further attention needs to be given to ‘ascending’ from the concrete to the abstract in pedagogical practices. The study also pointed to the need for a more inclusive knowledge framework for waste management training, especially in the field of recontextualisation (both the official and pedagogical recontextualisation fields) to extend possibilities for workers to learn more about economic potential and access routes into more sustainable jobs. It identifies the need for a more systemic approach to waste management in rural towns and municipalities, improved compliance and also proposes that better waste management practices are modelled to avoid performative contradictions between the knowledge promoted in the field of production and the official and pedagogical recontextualising fields and the field of reproduction, where workers are learning this knowledge via a mix of accredited training and exposure to participation in waste management practices. This study contributes to new knowledge in that it offers an epistemically grounded and theorised pedagogical process model for Level 2 Waste Management Training (in the EPWP programmes, but potentially also more broadly) that accords with the need for a strong epistemic relation code (ER+) embodied in the need for learning scientific and technical waste management knowledge and procedures. It also addresses workers’ needs for greater epistemic access and participation in knowledge building and application of waste management knowledge in praxis as per the purpose of the EPW training programmes, thereby potentially opening up more sustainable learning pathways for them out of poverty through the EPWP training opportunities. The study has pointed to key areas for further research, including further research on the proposed model, further research into Level 2 pedagogical practices and further research into the foundations of waste management learning in schools. Most of the workers who were participating in the training in the EPWP programmes were educated at above Level 2 before participating in the projects, yet their knowledge and experience of waste management was mostly based on everyday knowledge, pointing to an absence of adequate waste management education in schools in rural contexts in South Africa. The study has also made various recommendations for improving waste management education and training at Level 2 in EPWP programmes in rural areas in particular (but potentially also more widely), notably the need to develop a more inclusive knowledge framework that includes historical and economic knowledge more explicitly at all levels of the recontextualisation process; improved pedagogical and assessment practices that take better account of learners knowledge and experiences in knowledge building processes; and giving attention to structural and systemic approaches to waste management in rural areas to avoid performative contradictions that arise between the knowledge being promoted in the field of production and the field of reproduction and the actual context of waste management.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Giqwa, Nomfundiso Louisa
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Refuse and refuse disposal -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , South Africa. Expanded Public Works Programme , Refuse and refuse disposal -- Employees -- Training of -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , South Africa. Department of Environmental Affairs , Knowledge, Theory of , Knowledge, Sociology of
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63729 , vital:28478
- Description: This study set out to investigate the structuring, recontextualisation and circulation of waste management knowledge in the South African environmental Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) Waste Management Projects. In this thesis these projects also referred to as the Working on Waste (WoW) programme or focus area within the Environmental Protection and Infrastructure Programme (EPIP) hosted by the National Department of Environmental Affairs. Expanded Public Work Programmes are a strategy used by governments to address unemployment and in South Africa; the programmes also seek to address a need for skills development. In this study, the focus is on EPWP waste management knowledge, training programmes and activities only. With waste management knowledge as the core interest, the focus of the investigation was on knowledge circulation of waste management via informal (participation in the project) and formal training of workers at Level 2 National Qualifications Framework (NQF). The study started by firstly investigating what waste management knowledge is produced in the Field of Production via scientific research and policy. It then studied how this waste management knowledge is recontextualised into qualifications and skills programmes designed in the official recontextualising field and learning materials and training programmes designed and offered in the professional recontextualising field. The study also focused on the knowledge of workers and their experience of training in the EPWP workplaces, with an emphasis on rural workplaces. This is where the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) is placing emphasis on training for job creation, empowerment and skills development, and it is also where a number of EPWP Working on Waste programmes are being implemented. The aim was also to develop an understanding of how knowledge circulates amongst learners in training sessions and in workplaces. To do this, I drew on Bernstein’s theory of the pedagogical device which provides theoretical lenses and a language of description to explain how knowledge is recontextualised from the field of production to the field of reproduction. To investigate the structuring of this knowledge by official and pedagogical recontextualisers, I drew on the work of Maton, who offers a Legitimation Code Theory to explain the principles structuring knowledge, of which I used specialisation and semantics (two of his suite of knowledge structuring principles) for analysis. The questions that guided the study throughout were: 1. What is the structure of legitimate knowledge and knowers in waste management? 2. What are the underlying principles underpinning knowledge and knowers in waste management? 3. How is the knowledge recontextualised in waste management training qualifications, documents and manuals for worker training at NQF Level 2? 4. How is the knowledge reproduced and evaluated in the waste management EPWP training activities (formal) and workplaces (informal)? 5. How does waste management knowledge circulate amongst the workers in the EPWP training activities and workplaces? For this study I used the case study method, focusing only on one field or DEA EPWP focus area (waste management) and one programme (EPWP Working on Waste), looking in more depth at two cases (two similar types of projects) within the EPWP Working on Waste programme, though they are situated in different areas and though I could only carry through observations of actual workplace training in one of the two sites due to contextual circumstances. The first project was situated in the Amathole District Municipality while the second one was situated in the Chris Hani District Municipality, both of which are in the rural towns of the former Transkei region in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. This area has been at the forefront in accessing funding for these projects due to the level of poverty surrounding these towns and the inability of the local government sphere to deliver on its mandate in the region. Data was collected through document analysis, questionnaires, interviews and observations. Documents analysed were research documents produced by researchers at the level of production as well as legal frameworks guiding waste management processes in this country. Qualifications and Unit Standards at Level 2, as well as training materials designed by providers were analysed. Training in one of the projects was observed and workers in both sites were interviewed twice. The main finding of the study is that waste management knowledge is characterised by interdisciplinarity and a strong epistemic relation which emphasises procedural and technical forms of knowledge. The study found that the knowledge constructed in the field, as well as the policies, qualifications and training programmes are all consequently characterised by a strong epistemic code (ER+) and a weak social relations code (SR-). The study also identified a ‘code clash’ with the knowledge of workers in rural towns whose knowledge and experience of waste management was found to reflect a strong social relation (SR+) and weak epistemic code (ER-), a pattern which was traced back to a similar code in waste management knowledge at home and school (i.e. workers’ prior knowledge and learning experiences). This created difficulties for the trainers who sought to use strategies of descending from the abstract to the concrete in various ‘descending’ semantic waves that tended to move from high levels of semantic density (SD+) to lower levels of semantic density (SD-) as the training provider sought to contextualise a range of concepts. This was the main strategy identified for mediating waste management knowledge reflecting a dominant pattern of SD+/SG- to SD-/SG+ (with SG meaning semantic gravity). This shows that the trainer seldom started mediating concepts from the basis of workers’ prior knowledge and experience and observations showed little responsiveness from workers resulting from this strategy. Despite this, the study found that workers did develop an improved understanding of specialised waste management knowledge over time, especially through observing and doing more complex tasks in the workplace. The study offers a model for addressing the pedagogical difficulty identified around the code clash, and suggests that further attention needs to be given to ‘ascending’ from the concrete to the abstract in pedagogical practices. The study also pointed to the need for a more inclusive knowledge framework for waste management training, especially in the field of recontextualisation (both the official and pedagogical recontextualisation fields) to extend possibilities for workers to learn more about economic potential and access routes into more sustainable jobs. It identifies the need for a more systemic approach to waste management in rural towns and municipalities, improved compliance and also proposes that better waste management practices are modelled to avoid performative contradictions between the knowledge promoted in the field of production and the official and pedagogical recontextualising fields and the field of reproduction, where workers are learning this knowledge via a mix of accredited training and exposure to participation in waste management practices. This study contributes to new knowledge in that it offers an epistemically grounded and theorised pedagogical process model for Level 2 Waste Management Training (in the EPWP programmes, but potentially also more broadly) that accords with the need for a strong epistemic relation code (ER+) embodied in the need for learning scientific and technical waste management knowledge and procedures. It also addresses workers’ needs for greater epistemic access and participation in knowledge building and application of waste management knowledge in praxis as per the purpose of the EPW training programmes, thereby potentially opening up more sustainable learning pathways for them out of poverty through the EPWP training opportunities. The study has pointed to key areas for further research, including further research on the proposed model, further research into Level 2 pedagogical practices and further research into the foundations of waste management learning in schools. Most of the workers who were participating in the training in the EPWP programmes were educated at above Level 2 before participating in the projects, yet their knowledge and experience of waste management was mostly based on everyday knowledge, pointing to an absence of adequate waste management education in schools in rural contexts in South Africa. The study has also made various recommendations for improving waste management education and training at Level 2 in EPWP programmes in rural areas in particular (but potentially also more widely), notably the need to develop a more inclusive knowledge framework that includes historical and economic knowledge more explicitly at all levels of the recontextualisation process; improved pedagogical and assessment practices that take better account of learners knowledge and experiences in knowledge building processes; and giving attention to structural and systemic approaches to waste management in rural areas to avoid performative contradictions that arise between the knowledge being promoted in the field of production and the field of reproduction and the actual context of waste management.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Recontextualising issues in the 'NISTCOL" environmental education curriculum module for Primary Diploma by Distance Learning in Zambia
- Authors: Moose, John
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Zambia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1722 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003605
- Description: This study investigated the recontextualising of the NISTCOL environmental education curriculum module for the Primary Teachers’ Diploma by Distance Learning (PTDDL) in Zambia. It focused on three case sites, the NISTCOL EE curriculum module for PTDDL and the University of Zambia, the National In-Service Teacher’s College (NISTCOL) and four basic schools: chalimbana, Bimbe, Chongwe and Silver Rest. The study looked at teacher professional development in environmental education in Zambia. The aims and goals were to investigate the NISTCOL EE curriculum and identifying issues that were associated with lecturers in the recontextualising process and further examine what issues were associated with curriculum recontextualisation in Zambian schools. For the conceptual constructs, the research drew on Bernstein’s (1990) framework of pedagogic discourse, it traced how the pedagogic discourse was de-located from the field of production and re-located into the pedagogic practice of each stated case above. It further examined the continuities, discontinuities and changes in the official environmental discourse as it was recontextualised. The study particularly focused on Bernstein’s conceptual constructs of selective appropriation and ideological transformation. In each case the Bernstein framework is used to analyze the process to identify recontextualising issues influencing pedagogical practice in the Zambian schools and college. The study revealed that each case under focus was unique but through examining the environmental discourse and pedagogical discourse in each case recontextalising issues were identified. Each case was influenced by different factors, such as lack of policy synergy, lack of EE vision at national level in Zambia, experience and knowledge, ideologies and emphasis, and depth of engagement. These factors provided me with a deeper insight into the curriculum recontextualising processes in Zambian schools.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Moose, John
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Zambia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1722 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003605
- Description: This study investigated the recontextualising of the NISTCOL environmental education curriculum module for the Primary Teachers’ Diploma by Distance Learning (PTDDL) in Zambia. It focused on three case sites, the NISTCOL EE curriculum module for PTDDL and the University of Zambia, the National In-Service Teacher’s College (NISTCOL) and four basic schools: chalimbana, Bimbe, Chongwe and Silver Rest. The study looked at teacher professional development in environmental education in Zambia. The aims and goals were to investigate the NISTCOL EE curriculum and identifying issues that were associated with lecturers in the recontextualising process and further examine what issues were associated with curriculum recontextualisation in Zambian schools. For the conceptual constructs, the research drew on Bernstein’s (1990) framework of pedagogic discourse, it traced how the pedagogic discourse was de-located from the field of production and re-located into the pedagogic practice of each stated case above. It further examined the continuities, discontinuities and changes in the official environmental discourse as it was recontextualised. The study particularly focused on Bernstein’s conceptual constructs of selective appropriation and ideological transformation. In each case the Bernstein framework is used to analyze the process to identify recontextualising issues influencing pedagogical practice in the Zambian schools and college. The study revealed that each case under focus was unique but through examining the environmental discourse and pedagogical discourse in each case recontextalising issues were identified. Each case was influenced by different factors, such as lack of policy synergy, lack of EE vision at national level in Zambia, experience and knowledge, ideologies and emphasis, and depth of engagement. These factors provided me with a deeper insight into the curriculum recontextualising processes in Zambian schools.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Hearing silenced voices: a learning-centred approach to sustainable land rehabilitation and natural resource management
- Authors: Wolff, Margaret Gascoyne
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Watershed management -- South Africa -- Citizen participation , Water-supply -- Management -- Citizen participation , Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/94958 , vital:31101
- Description: South Africa is a semi-arid country with dysfunctional water management. The National Water Act encourages integrated water resource management and public participation in contributing to strategies for managing water within delineated areas. Various challenges hamper progress of integrated water resource management and meaningful participation by residents in catchments across the country. One of the challenges is the lack of knowledge about their role in water resource management. By viewing catchments as complex social-ecological systems, this case study investigates how to establish a learning-centred approach to catchment management forum (CMF) formation. The study addressed three sub-questions: What activity systems need to be prioritised for community participation in CMF formation? What existing learning can be identified within the activity systems? What are the sources for expansive social learning in and between the activity systems? The study draws on social learning theory, and on cultural historical activity theory as it offers a methodological approach to identifying a learning-centred approach to learning in a catchment context. Drawing on this theoretical framework, for research question 1, I identified five activity systems that are present in the study area, are partly representative of the people who live in the area, and are linked to land and water governance either through their positions as government employees within the sector, or the NLEIP in ways that influence communities’ lives and livelihoods. To address question 2, I ran learning-centred workshops and interviewed people who lived in the study area. Careful, respectful listening and participants’ use of home language created the safe space in which residents revealed that they know which water resources are important to protect and where breakdowns in communication happen. For question 3, I analysed the data from the workshops and interviews using a cultural historical activity theory framework to identify discursive manifestations of contradictions within and between activity systems which illuminate the potential for expansive social learning. This study recommends developing an understanding of the complex social-ecological context and prioritising co-learning and community participation in a learning-centred approach to catchment management forum formation. For this, there is need to develop in-depth insight into activity systems associated with water governance in local contexts. In this study I identified five of these activity systems, but the study points to a further range of activity systems that need to be considered for a learning-centred approach to be fully established. The study also found that communities are learning via engaging in the rehabilitation work, through engagements in workshops and within the municipal structures. Additionally, the study identified a number of contradictions that can provide sources of learning for taking an expansive learning approach further in CMF formation. Such an approach may provide the space to build bridges of trust between diverse knowledge systems, and has the potential to encourage sustainable co-operation in natural resource management.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Wolff, Margaret Gascoyne
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Watershed management -- South Africa -- Citizen participation , Water-supply -- Management -- Citizen participation , Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/94958 , vital:31101
- Description: South Africa is a semi-arid country with dysfunctional water management. The National Water Act encourages integrated water resource management and public participation in contributing to strategies for managing water within delineated areas. Various challenges hamper progress of integrated water resource management and meaningful participation by residents in catchments across the country. One of the challenges is the lack of knowledge about their role in water resource management. By viewing catchments as complex social-ecological systems, this case study investigates how to establish a learning-centred approach to catchment management forum (CMF) formation. The study addressed three sub-questions: What activity systems need to be prioritised for community participation in CMF formation? What existing learning can be identified within the activity systems? What are the sources for expansive social learning in and between the activity systems? The study draws on social learning theory, and on cultural historical activity theory as it offers a methodological approach to identifying a learning-centred approach to learning in a catchment context. Drawing on this theoretical framework, for research question 1, I identified five activity systems that are present in the study area, are partly representative of the people who live in the area, and are linked to land and water governance either through their positions as government employees within the sector, or the NLEIP in ways that influence communities’ lives and livelihoods. To address question 2, I ran learning-centred workshops and interviewed people who lived in the study area. Careful, respectful listening and participants’ use of home language created the safe space in which residents revealed that they know which water resources are important to protect and where breakdowns in communication happen. For question 3, I analysed the data from the workshops and interviews using a cultural historical activity theory framework to identify discursive manifestations of contradictions within and between activity systems which illuminate the potential for expansive social learning. This study recommends developing an understanding of the complex social-ecological context and prioritising co-learning and community participation in a learning-centred approach to catchment management forum formation. For this, there is need to develop in-depth insight into activity systems associated with water governance in local contexts. In this study I identified five of these activity systems, but the study points to a further range of activity systems that need to be considered for a learning-centred approach to be fully established. The study also found that communities are learning via engaging in the rehabilitation work, through engagements in workshops and within the municipal structures. Additionally, the study identified a number of contradictions that can provide sources of learning for taking an expansive learning approach further in CMF formation. Such an approach may provide the space to build bridges of trust between diverse knowledge systems, and has the potential to encourage sustainable co-operation in natural resource management.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Exploring functionings and conversion factors in biodiversity teacher professional learning communities
- Tshiningayamwe, Sirkka Alina Nambashun
- Authors: Tshiningayamwe, Sirkka Alina Nambashun
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2080 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021313
- Description: The study explores the conversion factors, functionings (valued beings and doings), agency and structures in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) for Life Sciences teachers’ biodiversity knowledge. The teachers’ valued beings and doings as well as conversion factors associated with these beings and doings were discussed within the conceptual framework of the capability approach using three PLCs in South Africa. Two PLCs were in the Eastern Cape Province (Grahamstown and Idutywa district), and one PLC was in the Western Cape (Cape Town) province. The PLCs involved in this study were course initiated and were positioned in the Fundisa for Change national teacher education programme. Fundisa for Change is a partnership programme that aims to enhance transformative environmental learning through teacher education. To illuminate constrained capabilities and how and to what extent the Life Sciences teachers’ empirical actions are related to these, the concepts of the capability approach were underlaboured with critical realism’s causal view of human action. A critical realist theory of causation was useful in explaining how the teachers’ valued beings and doings, conversion factors and capability sets can be partly accounted for via an understanding of underlying mechanisms that are generative of events and empirical experience. The study used a qualitative case study research methodology. Interviews, questionnaires, observations (of PLC activities), document reviews (of teachers’ portfolios of evidence, Fundisa for Change implementation plan, evaluation forms and resources materials, and policy documents) and reflection tools were used to collect data. Using the critical realism modes of inference (induction, abduction and retroduction), the data was analysed in two phases. Phase one analysis was primarily inductive and used thick descriptions (mainly in the form of quotes) to present and discuss the teachers’ valued beings and doings and associated conversion factors in the PLCs. This phase of analysis was abductive. The study reported four main functionings valued by teachers: subject content knowledge, teaching practices, assessment practices, and use of teaching and learning support materials. These valued functionings were discussed in light of the beings and doings in the PLCs and the underlying mechanisms related to teachers’ biodiversity teaching. Conversion factors that were associated with the teachers’ valued beings and doings in the PLCs were discussed in line with capability approach’s environmental, social and personal conversion factors. The study found that most of the conversion factors within the PLCs and the Fundisa for Change professional development programme (good facilitation, collaborative learning space, site where PLC activities happened, individual teachers’ capabilities, teaching and learning support materials and policy documents) were enablers to the teachers’ capabilities for biodiversity teaching, and thus enhanced teachers’ knowledge for biodiversity teaching. The study further found that teachers realised some of their achieved functionings in their actual teaching of biodiversity content in the Life Sciences curriculum, and that factors such as lack of resources, large class sizes, learners’ abilities and lack of interest among some teachers were amongst the factors that constrained teachers’ realisation of their achieved functionings in the PLCs. The study therefore revealed that if professional development programmes take account of underlying mechanisms and respond to teachers’ capabilities i.e. their valued functionings for biodiversity teaching in the Life Sciences curriculum, the professional development programmes can be an important conversion factor that enables the expansion of teachers’ capabilities (especially their biodiversity knowledge, pedagogical and assessment practice but also other capabilities) in ways that have the potential to reshape teachers’ classroom practices related to the teaching of biodiversity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Tshiningayamwe, Sirkka Alina Nambashun
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2080 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021313
- Description: The study explores the conversion factors, functionings (valued beings and doings), agency and structures in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) for Life Sciences teachers’ biodiversity knowledge. The teachers’ valued beings and doings as well as conversion factors associated with these beings and doings were discussed within the conceptual framework of the capability approach using three PLCs in South Africa. Two PLCs were in the Eastern Cape Province (Grahamstown and Idutywa district), and one PLC was in the Western Cape (Cape Town) province. The PLCs involved in this study were course initiated and were positioned in the Fundisa for Change national teacher education programme. Fundisa for Change is a partnership programme that aims to enhance transformative environmental learning through teacher education. To illuminate constrained capabilities and how and to what extent the Life Sciences teachers’ empirical actions are related to these, the concepts of the capability approach were underlaboured with critical realism’s causal view of human action. A critical realist theory of causation was useful in explaining how the teachers’ valued beings and doings, conversion factors and capability sets can be partly accounted for via an understanding of underlying mechanisms that are generative of events and empirical experience. The study used a qualitative case study research methodology. Interviews, questionnaires, observations (of PLC activities), document reviews (of teachers’ portfolios of evidence, Fundisa for Change implementation plan, evaluation forms and resources materials, and policy documents) and reflection tools were used to collect data. Using the critical realism modes of inference (induction, abduction and retroduction), the data was analysed in two phases. Phase one analysis was primarily inductive and used thick descriptions (mainly in the form of quotes) to present and discuss the teachers’ valued beings and doings and associated conversion factors in the PLCs. This phase of analysis was abductive. The study reported four main functionings valued by teachers: subject content knowledge, teaching practices, assessment practices, and use of teaching and learning support materials. These valued functionings were discussed in light of the beings and doings in the PLCs and the underlying mechanisms related to teachers’ biodiversity teaching. Conversion factors that were associated with the teachers’ valued beings and doings in the PLCs were discussed in line with capability approach’s environmental, social and personal conversion factors. The study found that most of the conversion factors within the PLCs and the Fundisa for Change professional development programme (good facilitation, collaborative learning space, site where PLC activities happened, individual teachers’ capabilities, teaching and learning support materials and policy documents) were enablers to the teachers’ capabilities for biodiversity teaching, and thus enhanced teachers’ knowledge for biodiversity teaching. The study further found that teachers realised some of their achieved functionings in their actual teaching of biodiversity content in the Life Sciences curriculum, and that factors such as lack of resources, large class sizes, learners’ abilities and lack of interest among some teachers were amongst the factors that constrained teachers’ realisation of their achieved functionings in the PLCs. The study therefore revealed that if professional development programmes take account of underlying mechanisms and respond to teachers’ capabilities i.e. their valued functionings for biodiversity teaching in the Life Sciences curriculum, the professional development programmes can be an important conversion factor that enables the expansion of teachers’ capabilities (especially their biodiversity knowledge, pedagogical and assessment practice but also other capabilities) in ways that have the potential to reshape teachers’ classroom practices related to the teaching of biodiversity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Investigating teaching strategies used by teachers to foster environmental learning in the Namibian Life Science curriculum
- Authors: Hoabes, Rosina
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Life sciences -- Study and teaching -- Namibia Education -- Namibia Teaching -- Namibia Effective teaching -- Namibia Curriculum planning -- Namibia Educational change -- Namibia Environmental education -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1590 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003472
- Description: This study was carried out to investigate the strategies used by teachers to foster environmental learning in the Namibian Life Science curriculum in four schools in Swakopmund, Erongo Education Region. This study is a qualitative case study. I used semi-structured interviews, observation and document analysis as instruments to collect data. Two schools were selected to participate in the case study. Research participants included four teachers (two teachers from each school) of which two teachers are teaching at each school. The study was contextualised through a review of policy changes in Namibian education, which focus on learner-centred education. The study identified six strategies used by teachers to foster environmental learning in the Life Sciences curriculum. These are planning; working with information; practical, excursions and clubs; involving the learners; using visual aids and teaching materials; and choosing topics with a local focus. Through a consideration of the different strategies used by teachers, in relation to the learner-centred nature of the educational reform project in Namibia the study provides insight into the way in which teachers view learner-centred education. The study also illuminates how strategies used by teachers reflect learner-centred education principles and it outlines a number of tensions emerging in the fostering of environmental learning in learner-centred ways. The study identifies further support required by teachers, and makes recommendations which will further enhance the strategies used by teachers to foster the environmental learning focus in Life Sciences, and also enhance learner-centred teaching in Life Science.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
- Authors: Hoabes, Rosina
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Life sciences -- Study and teaching -- Namibia Education -- Namibia Teaching -- Namibia Effective teaching -- Namibia Curriculum planning -- Namibia Educational change -- Namibia Environmental education -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1590 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003472
- Description: This study was carried out to investigate the strategies used by teachers to foster environmental learning in the Namibian Life Science curriculum in four schools in Swakopmund, Erongo Education Region. This study is a qualitative case study. I used semi-structured interviews, observation and document analysis as instruments to collect data. Two schools were selected to participate in the case study. Research participants included four teachers (two teachers from each school) of which two teachers are teaching at each school. The study was contextualised through a review of policy changes in Namibian education, which focus on learner-centred education. The study identified six strategies used by teachers to foster environmental learning in the Life Sciences curriculum. These are planning; working with information; practical, excursions and clubs; involving the learners; using visual aids and teaching materials; and choosing topics with a local focus. Through a consideration of the different strategies used by teachers, in relation to the learner-centred nature of the educational reform project in Namibia the study provides insight into the way in which teachers view learner-centred education. The study also illuminates how strategies used by teachers reflect learner-centred education principles and it outlines a number of tensions emerging in the fostering of environmental learning in learner-centred ways. The study identifies further support required by teachers, and makes recommendations which will further enhance the strategies used by teachers to foster the environmental learning focus in Life Sciences, and also enhance learner-centred teaching in Life Science.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
Investigating and expanding learning across activity system boundaries in improved cook stove innovation diffusion and adoption in Malawi
- Jalasi, Experencia Madalitso
- Authors: Jalasi, Experencia Madalitso
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Stoves, Wood -- Technological innovations -- Malawi , Biomass stoves -- Malawi , Economic development projects -- Environmental aspects -- Malawi , Rural development projects -- Environmental aspects -- Malawi
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68170 , vital:29212
- Description: This study investigates and expands learning within and between activity systems working with Improved Cook Stoves (hereafter ICS) in Malawi. The study focuses on how existing learning interactions among ICS actors can be expanded using expansive learning processes, mobilised through Boundary Crossing Change Laboratories (BCCL) to potentially inform more sustained uptake and utilisation of the ICS technology. The ICS, as a socio-technical innovation, seeks to respond to climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts in the country. However, sustained uptake and utilisation has been problematic. The study is located in the field of Environmental Education, with emphasis on the diffusion and adoption of socio-technical innovations in the context of ICS technology. The study addresses societal environmental health risks faced by people using traditional biomass fuels indoors on open fires, commonly referred to as Three Stone Fire (hereafter TSF) through formative intervention supported by Developmental Work Research (hereafter DWR) or Expansive Learning. The study was conducted in three climate change hotspot districts in Malawi: Balaka, Dedza and Mzimba. The case studies are in each of the three administrative regions of the country. Chapita Village case study is in Balaka district, in the Southern region; Waziloya Makwakwa Village is in Mzimba district in the Northern region; and Chilije Village in Dedza district in the Central region. In order to engage the potential for transformation in study areas, I divided the study into two phases. The first phase involved collection of ethnographic data to more deeply understand the context of the problem including existing learning approaches. This informed the second phase, which focused on expansive learning processes in the Chapita and Waziloya Makwakwa case studies. The study used a formative intervention approach, which focused on supporting the actors to manage the challenges they were facing and work out the problematic situations in their joint activity. The study employed a qualitative intensive research design because it aimed at in-depth understanding of uptake and utilisation of ICS. This was an important foundation for improving the existing situations through co-creating solutions with research participants. With this generative and action-oriented approach, the study employed a multiple embedded case study design. CHAT and Critical Realism were the two main theories that I employed as they resonated with the transformative interest of the study through focusing on learning as an emancipatory process with potential for transformation of human practices. In addition, I used the methodological theory of Expansive Learning from CHAT to guide the expansive learning processes. With the critical realist framing of the study, I employed a critical realist analytical framework, and used inductive, abductive and retroductive analyses.The major findings of the study indicate that broadly, uptake and utilisation of ICS is problematic, hence unsustained. The findings indicate that the majority of end-users in Chapita and Chilije case studies switched between TSF and ICS, or abandoned the ICS, which was not the case in Waziloya Makwakwa case study. The underlying causal mechanisms that appear to explain and influence end-users’ actions in all the case studies were the search for convenience during the cooking activity. Further, findings revealed that learning interactions among activity systems were unidirectional which provides evidence for top-down approaches prevalent in cook stove dissemination. The findings also indicated that most of the learning taking place was informative, not transformative. It was also inadequate, particularly for end-users. A causal mechanism that appears to shape how actors are learning ICS technology is poverty, which results in over-reliance on donor-driven projects. Findings also reveal that contradictions in the learning, uptake and utilisation of ICS influence the profile of uptake and utilisation of ICSs. Further, the change-oriented learning processes, as carried out in the Chapita and Waziloya Makwakwa case studies, have shown their potential in expanding learning interactions among ICS actors, evoking and supporting their transformative agency and enhancing their reflexivity. These processes are crucial in development and sustaining learning and change in the uptake and utilisation of ICS innovation. The main contribution of the study is methodological. It contributes broadly to diffusion and adoption of socio-technical innovations through change-oriented expansive learning processes. The study generated an Innovative Extension and Communicative Methodology, which foregrounds interaction and learning and links the socio-technical innovation intention and socio-technical innovation uptake and utilisation that potentially informs the dissemination and implementation of ICS projects. Further, the study contributes to community education by mobilising communities to address contradictions, absences, or ills in the society via change-oriented learning processes. The societal ills facing the case study sites and the areas around them, caused by climate change and variability and deforestation exacerbate the lives of rural women who are afflicted by conditions of poverty. The study contributes to global and local efforts and initiatives to address environmental health risks faced by people using traditional biomass fuels indoors on TSF and climate change mitigation and adaptation. This study has found out that putting the agency of the end-user in the centre in socio-technical transitions through context-based problem resolution and rigorous deliberate1 mediated processes of participation and learning, which allows multivoicedness and takes power relations into account, catalyses transformative agency, reflexivity, collaboration and learning capacity of ICS actors for sustained uptake and utilisation of the ICS socio-technical innovation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Jalasi, Experencia Madalitso
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Stoves, Wood -- Technological innovations -- Malawi , Biomass stoves -- Malawi , Economic development projects -- Environmental aspects -- Malawi , Rural development projects -- Environmental aspects -- Malawi
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68170 , vital:29212
- Description: This study investigates and expands learning within and between activity systems working with Improved Cook Stoves (hereafter ICS) in Malawi. The study focuses on how existing learning interactions among ICS actors can be expanded using expansive learning processes, mobilised through Boundary Crossing Change Laboratories (BCCL) to potentially inform more sustained uptake and utilisation of the ICS technology. The ICS, as a socio-technical innovation, seeks to respond to climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts in the country. However, sustained uptake and utilisation has been problematic. The study is located in the field of Environmental Education, with emphasis on the diffusion and adoption of socio-technical innovations in the context of ICS technology. The study addresses societal environmental health risks faced by people using traditional biomass fuels indoors on open fires, commonly referred to as Three Stone Fire (hereafter TSF) through formative intervention supported by Developmental Work Research (hereafter DWR) or Expansive Learning. The study was conducted in three climate change hotspot districts in Malawi: Balaka, Dedza and Mzimba. The case studies are in each of the three administrative regions of the country. Chapita Village case study is in Balaka district, in the Southern region; Waziloya Makwakwa Village is in Mzimba district in the Northern region; and Chilije Village in Dedza district in the Central region. In order to engage the potential for transformation in study areas, I divided the study into two phases. The first phase involved collection of ethnographic data to more deeply understand the context of the problem including existing learning approaches. This informed the second phase, which focused on expansive learning processes in the Chapita and Waziloya Makwakwa case studies. The study used a formative intervention approach, which focused on supporting the actors to manage the challenges they were facing and work out the problematic situations in their joint activity. The study employed a qualitative intensive research design because it aimed at in-depth understanding of uptake and utilisation of ICS. This was an important foundation for improving the existing situations through co-creating solutions with research participants. With this generative and action-oriented approach, the study employed a multiple embedded case study design. CHAT and Critical Realism were the two main theories that I employed as they resonated with the transformative interest of the study through focusing on learning as an emancipatory process with potential for transformation of human practices. In addition, I used the methodological theory of Expansive Learning from CHAT to guide the expansive learning processes. With the critical realist framing of the study, I employed a critical realist analytical framework, and used inductive, abductive and retroductive analyses.The major findings of the study indicate that broadly, uptake and utilisation of ICS is problematic, hence unsustained. The findings indicate that the majority of end-users in Chapita and Chilije case studies switched between TSF and ICS, or abandoned the ICS, which was not the case in Waziloya Makwakwa case study. The underlying causal mechanisms that appear to explain and influence end-users’ actions in all the case studies were the search for convenience during the cooking activity. Further, findings revealed that learning interactions among activity systems were unidirectional which provides evidence for top-down approaches prevalent in cook stove dissemination. The findings also indicated that most of the learning taking place was informative, not transformative. It was also inadequate, particularly for end-users. A causal mechanism that appears to shape how actors are learning ICS technology is poverty, which results in over-reliance on donor-driven projects. Findings also reveal that contradictions in the learning, uptake and utilisation of ICS influence the profile of uptake and utilisation of ICSs. Further, the change-oriented learning processes, as carried out in the Chapita and Waziloya Makwakwa case studies, have shown their potential in expanding learning interactions among ICS actors, evoking and supporting their transformative agency and enhancing their reflexivity. These processes are crucial in development and sustaining learning and change in the uptake and utilisation of ICS innovation. The main contribution of the study is methodological. It contributes broadly to diffusion and adoption of socio-technical innovations through change-oriented expansive learning processes. The study generated an Innovative Extension and Communicative Methodology, which foregrounds interaction and learning and links the socio-technical innovation intention and socio-technical innovation uptake and utilisation that potentially informs the dissemination and implementation of ICS projects. Further, the study contributes to community education by mobilising communities to address contradictions, absences, or ills in the society via change-oriented learning processes. The societal ills facing the case study sites and the areas around them, caused by climate change and variability and deforestation exacerbate the lives of rural women who are afflicted by conditions of poverty. The study contributes to global and local efforts and initiatives to address environmental health risks faced by people using traditional biomass fuels indoors on TSF and climate change mitigation and adaptation. This study has found out that putting the agency of the end-user in the centre in socio-technical transitions through context-based problem resolution and rigorous deliberate1 mediated processes of participation and learning, which allows multivoicedness and takes power relations into account, catalyses transformative agency, reflexivity, collaboration and learning capacity of ICS actors for sustained uptake and utilisation of the ICS socio-technical innovation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Cognitive justice and environmental learning in South African social movements
- Authors: Burt, Jane Caroline
- Date: 2021-04
- Subjects: Transformative learning , Water security -- South Africa , Environmental education -- South Africa , EEASA (Organization) , Civil society -- South Africa , Water justice , Cognitive justice
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/174437 , vital:42477 , http://dx.doi.org/10.21504/10962/174437
- Description: This thesis by publication is an applied study into transformative learning as an emancipatory practice for water justice. It is guided by the core research question: How can cognitively just learning be an activist practice in social movements working towards water justice? To address this question, I use the applied critical realist approach which makes use of three moments of moral reasoning which are very similar to the approach adopted in the learning intervention that is the focus of this research. These three moments are: Diagnose, Explain, Act – sometimes known as the DEA model (Bhaskar, 2008, 243; Munnik & Price, 2015). The research object is the Changing Practice course for community-based environmental and social movements. The course was developed and studied over seven years, starting from the reflexive scholarship of environmental learning in South Africa, particularly the adult learning model of working together/working away developed through the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa in partnership with the Environmental Learning Research Centre at Rhodes University (Lotz-Sisitka & Raven, 2004). We (the facilitators/educators) ran the Changing Practice course three times (2012-2014; 2014-2016; 2016-2018), in which I generated substantive data which forms the empirical base on which this study was developed. We found the concept of cognitive justice (Visvanathan, 2005; de Sousa Santos, 2016) to be a powerful mobilizing concept with which to carry out emancipatory research and learning, in three ways. First, it brought together a group of researchers, activists and practitioners from different organizations to work on how to strengthen the role of civil society in monitoring government water policy and practice (Wilson et al., 2016). Second, within the Changing Practice course itself, it became a principle for guiding learning design and pedagogy as well as a way of engaging in dialogue with the participants around the politics of knowledge, exclusion and inclusion in knowledge production, systems of oppression and multiple knowledges (Wilson et al., 2016; Burt et al., 2018). Thirdly, the participants’ change projects (the applied projects undertaken during the ‘working away’ phase between course modules), allowed participants to draw on different knowledge systems, which they learnt to do in the ‘working together’ modules, and to address cognitive justice concerns linked to environmental justice. The change projects also challenged our learning pedagogy by raising contradictions in the course’s approach to learning that needed to be transformed in order for our pedagogy to be more cognitively just. Throughout this thesis I argue that the work of cognitive justice deepens the connections between people, institutions and structures, particularly in relation to transformative learning. Our intention was to identify and critique structures and ideologies that perpetuated oppressive relations, and then to identify and enact the work needed towards transforming these relations. This is why I often refer to cognitive justice as a solidarity and mobilizing concept, and I use the term cognitive justice praxis to mean the reflection and actions that are needed to enact cognitive just learning. The facilitators and participants of the Changing Practice course worked to remove the layered effects of oppression both in the practice of water justice and in the learning process itself. We worked, however imperfectly, with a caring, collectively-held ethic towards each other and the world. Using the DEA model I applied the critical realist dialectic to analyse contradictions and generate explanations through four articles as reflexive writing projects (See Part 2 of this thesis). I used the critical realist dialectic both to reveal contradictions, investigate how these contradictions have come to be, and to generate alternative explanations and action to absent them. Through this research I identified four essential mechanisms for cognitively just environmental learning: care work, co-learning, reflexivity and an interdisciplinary approach to learning scholarship as learning praxis. The essential elements that made the Changing Practice course so effective were the working together/working away design, the encouraging of participants to make the change project something they were passionate about, and the situating and grounding of the Changing Practice course within a social movement network. We were able to show that for academic scholarship to contribute meaningfully to cognitively just learning praxis, it needs to be collaborative and reflexive, and start from the embodied historical and contextual experience of learning as experienced and understood by participants on the course. This demanded an interdisciplinary approach to work with contradictions in learning practice, one that could take into consideration different knowledges and knowledge practices beyond professional disciplines. Both social movement communities and scholarly communities have valuable knowledge to offer each other. As argued in article one, rather than a lack of knowledge, what more often limits our emancipatory action are factors that prevent us from coming closer together. (Burt et al, 2018) This research revealed that social movement learning towards water justice is multi-level care work, the four levels being: individual psychology, our relations with others, our relations with structures such as our social movements, and our relations with the planet. When such care work attains self- reflexivity, practice-reflexivity, co-learning and collective scholarship, it is able to absent the contradictions that inhibit cognitive justice. This thesis is a record of our attempts to learn how to achieve this.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021-04
- Authors: Burt, Jane Caroline
- Date: 2021-04
- Subjects: Transformative learning , Water security -- South Africa , Environmental education -- South Africa , EEASA (Organization) , Civil society -- South Africa , Water justice , Cognitive justice
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/174437 , vital:42477 , http://dx.doi.org/10.21504/10962/174437
- Description: This thesis by publication is an applied study into transformative learning as an emancipatory practice for water justice. It is guided by the core research question: How can cognitively just learning be an activist practice in social movements working towards water justice? To address this question, I use the applied critical realist approach which makes use of three moments of moral reasoning which are very similar to the approach adopted in the learning intervention that is the focus of this research. These three moments are: Diagnose, Explain, Act – sometimes known as the DEA model (Bhaskar, 2008, 243; Munnik & Price, 2015). The research object is the Changing Practice course for community-based environmental and social movements. The course was developed and studied over seven years, starting from the reflexive scholarship of environmental learning in South Africa, particularly the adult learning model of working together/working away developed through the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa in partnership with the Environmental Learning Research Centre at Rhodes University (Lotz-Sisitka & Raven, 2004). We (the facilitators/educators) ran the Changing Practice course three times (2012-2014; 2014-2016; 2016-2018), in which I generated substantive data which forms the empirical base on which this study was developed. We found the concept of cognitive justice (Visvanathan, 2005; de Sousa Santos, 2016) to be a powerful mobilizing concept with which to carry out emancipatory research and learning, in three ways. First, it brought together a group of researchers, activists and practitioners from different organizations to work on how to strengthen the role of civil society in monitoring government water policy and practice (Wilson et al., 2016). Second, within the Changing Practice course itself, it became a principle for guiding learning design and pedagogy as well as a way of engaging in dialogue with the participants around the politics of knowledge, exclusion and inclusion in knowledge production, systems of oppression and multiple knowledges (Wilson et al., 2016; Burt et al., 2018). Thirdly, the participants’ change projects (the applied projects undertaken during the ‘working away’ phase between course modules), allowed participants to draw on different knowledge systems, which they learnt to do in the ‘working together’ modules, and to address cognitive justice concerns linked to environmental justice. The change projects also challenged our learning pedagogy by raising contradictions in the course’s approach to learning that needed to be transformed in order for our pedagogy to be more cognitively just. Throughout this thesis I argue that the work of cognitive justice deepens the connections between people, institutions and structures, particularly in relation to transformative learning. Our intention was to identify and critique structures and ideologies that perpetuated oppressive relations, and then to identify and enact the work needed towards transforming these relations. This is why I often refer to cognitive justice as a solidarity and mobilizing concept, and I use the term cognitive justice praxis to mean the reflection and actions that are needed to enact cognitive just learning. The facilitators and participants of the Changing Practice course worked to remove the layered effects of oppression both in the practice of water justice and in the learning process itself. We worked, however imperfectly, with a caring, collectively-held ethic towards each other and the world. Using the DEA model I applied the critical realist dialectic to analyse contradictions and generate explanations through four articles as reflexive writing projects (See Part 2 of this thesis). I used the critical realist dialectic both to reveal contradictions, investigate how these contradictions have come to be, and to generate alternative explanations and action to absent them. Through this research I identified four essential mechanisms for cognitively just environmental learning: care work, co-learning, reflexivity and an interdisciplinary approach to learning scholarship as learning praxis. The essential elements that made the Changing Practice course so effective were the working together/working away design, the encouraging of participants to make the change project something they were passionate about, and the situating and grounding of the Changing Practice course within a social movement network. We were able to show that for academic scholarship to contribute meaningfully to cognitively just learning praxis, it needs to be collaborative and reflexive, and start from the embodied historical and contextual experience of learning as experienced and understood by participants on the course. This demanded an interdisciplinary approach to work with contradictions in learning practice, one that could take into consideration different knowledges and knowledge practices beyond professional disciplines. Both social movement communities and scholarly communities have valuable knowledge to offer each other. As argued in article one, rather than a lack of knowledge, what more often limits our emancipatory action are factors that prevent us from coming closer together. (Burt et al, 2018) This research revealed that social movement learning towards water justice is multi-level care work, the four levels being: individual psychology, our relations with others, our relations with structures such as our social movements, and our relations with the planet. When such care work attains self- reflexivity, practice-reflexivity, co-learning and collective scholarship, it is able to absent the contradictions that inhibit cognitive justice. This thesis is a record of our attempts to learn how to achieve this.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021-04
How an eco-school sanitation community of practice fosters action competence for sanitation management in a rural school : the case of Ramashobohle High School Eco-Schools Community of Practice in Mankweng circuit Polokwane Municipality Capricorn district in Limpopo Province, South Africa
- Authors: Manaka, Ngoanamoshala Maria
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Sanitation -- South Africa -- Management -- Citizen participation Public utilities -- South Africa -- Management -- Citizen participation Sanitation, Rural -- South Africa Sanitation -- Study and teaching -- South Africa School children -- Health and hygiene -- South Africa School hygiene -- South Africa Sanitation -- Health aspects -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1917 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007319
- Description: Providing adequate sanitation facilities for the poor remains one of the major challenges in all developing countries. In South Africa, an estimated 11,7% of the schools are without sanitation. The South African government has a constitutional responsibility to ensure that all South Africans have access to adequate sanitation. When sanitation systems fail, or are inadequate, the impact of the health of the community, on the health of others and the negative impact on the environment can be extremely serious. In rural South African schools, many Enviro-Ioo toilets are available today. They are designed to suit a variety of water scarce areas and where there is a high risk of contamination of ground water resources. It is important to realize that any Enviro-Ioo system programme requires an education programme to ensure that the principles of use and maintenance are clearly understood by the user group. Their maintenance requires more responsibility and commitment by users. This study is an interpretive case study that indicates how sanitation in a rural Ramashobohle High School in Polokwane municipality was managed through an EcoSchools Sanitation Community of Practice, and how this developed action competence for sanitation management in the school. The study established that the earlier practice and knowledge of the Ramashobohle Eco-Schools community of practice exercised in maintaining Enviro-Ioo systems was inadequate; unhealthy and unsafe according to the data generated through focus group interviews, observations, interviews, action plan, workshops and reflection interviews. The data generated also indicates that the Eco-Schools community of practice was not committed to maintaining sanitation in their school because they were not sharing sanitation knowledge; they were not communicating and not updating one another concerning Enviro-Ioo systems maintenance as they had no adequate knowledge as to how to maintain the facilities; and the school management was also not supportive and was not taking responsibility. The study shows how this situation was turned around as an Eco-Schools Sanitation Community of Practice focussed on developing action competence in the school community. It provides a case based example of how knowledge and action competence, supported by an Eco-Schools Community of Practice, can find and implement solutions to inadequate sanitation management practices in rural schools, and shows how members of the school community can be engaged in learning how to manage and maintain school sanitation systems through a participatory process that develops action competence. The study points to important dimensions of developing action competence, such as providing knowledge and demonstrations, inviting experts to the school, involving learners in observations and monitoring and in ensuring that adequate facilities are available. In particular, a workshop conducted by Enviro-Ioo consultants, organised and supported by the Eco-Schools Sanitation COP, together with a follow up action plan, provided the main impetus for changes in practice in the school and served to support action competence development. Finally the study provides research findings and recommendations for further research.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Manaka, Ngoanamoshala Maria
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Sanitation -- South Africa -- Management -- Citizen participation Public utilities -- South Africa -- Management -- Citizen participation Sanitation, Rural -- South Africa Sanitation -- Study and teaching -- South Africa School children -- Health and hygiene -- South Africa School hygiene -- South Africa Sanitation -- Health aspects -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1917 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007319
- Description: Providing adequate sanitation facilities for the poor remains one of the major challenges in all developing countries. In South Africa, an estimated 11,7% of the schools are without sanitation. The South African government has a constitutional responsibility to ensure that all South Africans have access to adequate sanitation. When sanitation systems fail, or are inadequate, the impact of the health of the community, on the health of others and the negative impact on the environment can be extremely serious. In rural South African schools, many Enviro-Ioo toilets are available today. They are designed to suit a variety of water scarce areas and where there is a high risk of contamination of ground water resources. It is important to realize that any Enviro-Ioo system programme requires an education programme to ensure that the principles of use and maintenance are clearly understood by the user group. Their maintenance requires more responsibility and commitment by users. This study is an interpretive case study that indicates how sanitation in a rural Ramashobohle High School in Polokwane municipality was managed through an EcoSchools Sanitation Community of Practice, and how this developed action competence for sanitation management in the school. The study established that the earlier practice and knowledge of the Ramashobohle Eco-Schools community of practice exercised in maintaining Enviro-Ioo systems was inadequate; unhealthy and unsafe according to the data generated through focus group interviews, observations, interviews, action plan, workshops and reflection interviews. The data generated also indicates that the Eco-Schools community of practice was not committed to maintaining sanitation in their school because they were not sharing sanitation knowledge; they were not communicating and not updating one another concerning Enviro-Ioo systems maintenance as they had no adequate knowledge as to how to maintain the facilities; and the school management was also not supportive and was not taking responsibility. The study shows how this situation was turned around as an Eco-Schools Sanitation Community of Practice focussed on developing action competence in the school community. It provides a case based example of how knowledge and action competence, supported by an Eco-Schools Community of Practice, can find and implement solutions to inadequate sanitation management practices in rural schools, and shows how members of the school community can be engaged in learning how to manage and maintain school sanitation systems through a participatory process that develops action competence. The study points to important dimensions of developing action competence, such as providing knowledge and demonstrations, inviting experts to the school, involving learners in observations and monitoring and in ensuring that adequate facilities are available. In particular, a workshop conducted by Enviro-Ioo consultants, organised and supported by the Eco-Schools Sanitation COP, together with a follow up action plan, provided the main impetus for changes in practice in the school and served to support action competence development. Finally the study provides research findings and recommendations for further research.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Exploring opportunities for action competence development through learners' participation in waste management activities in selected primary schools in Botswana
- Authors: Silo, Nthalivi
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Botswana -- Case studies Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Primary) -- Botswana -- Case studies Environmental education -- Activity programs -- Botswana -- Case studies Student-centered learning -- Botswana -- Case studies Refuse and refuse disposal -- Environmental aspects -- Botswana -- Case studies Active learning -- Botswana -- Case studies Competency-based education -- Botswana -- Case studies Teacher-student relationships -- Botswana -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1541 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003423
- Description: The broader aim of this study is to probe participation of learners in waste management activities in selected primary schools in Botswana and through these activities, explore opportunities for action competence development. The study starts by tracing and outlining the socio-ecological challenges that confront children and the historical background of learner-centred education which gave rise to an emphasis on learner participation in Botswana education policy. It then maps out the development of children's participation in the global, regional and Botswana contexts by tracing the development of environmental education from early ecological and issue resolution goals of environmental education to sustainable development discourses. The focus is on policy issues and how learner participation has been represented and implemented in environmental education. The study then probes the rhetorical and normalised emphases on participation, and seeks further insight into how learners can be engaged in participatory learning processes that are meaningful, purposeful and that broaden their action competence and civic agency. The study uses the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) methodology to build a picture of waste management activity systems in primary schools and to bring to the surface contradictions and tensions in learner participation in these activity systems. These contradictions are used to open up expansive learning participatory processes with learners using the Danish action competence framework. The expansive learning process uses action competence models that provide potential for transformative participation with learners, and new and different opportunities for learner participation. Case study research was used and conducted in the south eastern region of Botswana in three primary schools in three contexts, namely urban, peri-urban and rural. The data was largely generated through focus group interviews during workshops with children and observations of waste management activities. These two methods formed the main data generation methods. They were complemented by semi-structured interviews with teachers, and other actors in the waste management activities, learners' activities and work, learners' notes, photographs and children's drawings as well as show-and-tell explanations by learners. Content analysis and the abductive mode of inference were used to analyse data in all three case studies. Findings from the first phase of the study reveal that participation of learners in waste management activities was largely teacher-directed. This resulted in a mis-match between teachers views of what practices are necessary and important, and children's views of what practices are necessary and important in and for environmental education. Due to culturally and historically formed views of environmental education, the study reveals that teachers wanted children to pick up litter, and this was their primary environmental education concern. Learners on the other hand, identified sanitation management in the school toilets as their primary waste management concern. Teachers had not considered this an environmental education concern. Using the action competence expansive learning approach, the second phase of the study addressed this tension by opening up dialogue between teachers and learners and amongst the learners themselves through an expansive learning process supporting children's participation and action competence development. Through this teacher-learner dialogical engagement, a broader range of possibilities became available and ideas around participation were radically changed. The study further reveals that the achievement of this open dialogue provided for a better relationship within the school community. And with improved communication came better ideas to solve waste management issues that the community still face on a daily basis, such as too much litter. Newly devised solutions were practical and had a broader impact than the initial ones that teachers had always focussed on. They included mobilising the maintenance of toilets, landscaping the school premises and even re-contextualising the litter management that had always caused tensions between learners and teachers. Children seemed to be developing not only a better understanding of the environment, but also developing the ability to resolve conflict amongst themselves and with their elders. By engaging in dialogue with children, they became co-catalysts for change in the school community. This study shows that if children's participation is taken seriously, and if opportunities for dialogue exist between teachers and children, positive changes for a healthier environment can be created in schools. It reveals that children also appeared to be feeling more confident and more equipped to consider changes in their environment outside of the school community. The study further shows that participation in environmental education involves more than cognitive changes as proposed in earlier constructivist literature; it includes in-depth engagement with socio-cultural dynamics and histories in the school context, such as the cultural histories of teachers, schooling and authority structures in the cultural community of the school. The study recommends that there is need to strengthen Teacher Education programmes to develop teaching practices and support for teachers to identify ways of engaging learners' views on issues in the school in open, dialogical ways. Such Teacher Education programmes should deepen teachers' understandings of learners' zone of proximal development (ZPD), demonstrating how dialogue and scaffolding are part of a teacher's role in supporting learning. This is shown in the three case studies that form part of this study. Finally, the study also deepens insights of using the Cultural Historical Activity theory (CHAT) to shed light on issues surrounding learner participation within the socio-cultural and historical environmental education contexts of the schools. The action competence models used in the study provide a tool for revealing forms of learner participation. This tool can be used for critical reflections and monitoring of teaching practices in schools.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Silo, Nthalivi
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Botswana -- Case studies Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Primary) -- Botswana -- Case studies Environmental education -- Activity programs -- Botswana -- Case studies Student-centered learning -- Botswana -- Case studies Refuse and refuse disposal -- Environmental aspects -- Botswana -- Case studies Active learning -- Botswana -- Case studies Competency-based education -- Botswana -- Case studies Teacher-student relationships -- Botswana -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1541 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003423
- Description: The broader aim of this study is to probe participation of learners in waste management activities in selected primary schools in Botswana and through these activities, explore opportunities for action competence development. The study starts by tracing and outlining the socio-ecological challenges that confront children and the historical background of learner-centred education which gave rise to an emphasis on learner participation in Botswana education policy. It then maps out the development of children's participation in the global, regional and Botswana contexts by tracing the development of environmental education from early ecological and issue resolution goals of environmental education to sustainable development discourses. The focus is on policy issues and how learner participation has been represented and implemented in environmental education. The study then probes the rhetorical and normalised emphases on participation, and seeks further insight into how learners can be engaged in participatory learning processes that are meaningful, purposeful and that broaden their action competence and civic agency. The study uses the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) methodology to build a picture of waste management activity systems in primary schools and to bring to the surface contradictions and tensions in learner participation in these activity systems. These contradictions are used to open up expansive learning participatory processes with learners using the Danish action competence framework. The expansive learning process uses action competence models that provide potential for transformative participation with learners, and new and different opportunities for learner participation. Case study research was used and conducted in the south eastern region of Botswana in three primary schools in three contexts, namely urban, peri-urban and rural. The data was largely generated through focus group interviews during workshops with children and observations of waste management activities. These two methods formed the main data generation methods. They were complemented by semi-structured interviews with teachers, and other actors in the waste management activities, learners' activities and work, learners' notes, photographs and children's drawings as well as show-and-tell explanations by learners. Content analysis and the abductive mode of inference were used to analyse data in all three case studies. Findings from the first phase of the study reveal that participation of learners in waste management activities was largely teacher-directed. This resulted in a mis-match between teachers views of what practices are necessary and important, and children's views of what practices are necessary and important in and for environmental education. Due to culturally and historically formed views of environmental education, the study reveals that teachers wanted children to pick up litter, and this was their primary environmental education concern. Learners on the other hand, identified sanitation management in the school toilets as their primary waste management concern. Teachers had not considered this an environmental education concern. Using the action competence expansive learning approach, the second phase of the study addressed this tension by opening up dialogue between teachers and learners and amongst the learners themselves through an expansive learning process supporting children's participation and action competence development. Through this teacher-learner dialogical engagement, a broader range of possibilities became available and ideas around participation were radically changed. The study further reveals that the achievement of this open dialogue provided for a better relationship within the school community. And with improved communication came better ideas to solve waste management issues that the community still face on a daily basis, such as too much litter. Newly devised solutions were practical and had a broader impact than the initial ones that teachers had always focussed on. They included mobilising the maintenance of toilets, landscaping the school premises and even re-contextualising the litter management that had always caused tensions between learners and teachers. Children seemed to be developing not only a better understanding of the environment, but also developing the ability to resolve conflict amongst themselves and with their elders. By engaging in dialogue with children, they became co-catalysts for change in the school community. This study shows that if children's participation is taken seriously, and if opportunities for dialogue exist between teachers and children, positive changes for a healthier environment can be created in schools. It reveals that children also appeared to be feeling more confident and more equipped to consider changes in their environment outside of the school community. The study further shows that participation in environmental education involves more than cognitive changes as proposed in earlier constructivist literature; it includes in-depth engagement with socio-cultural dynamics and histories in the school context, such as the cultural histories of teachers, schooling and authority structures in the cultural community of the school. The study recommends that there is need to strengthen Teacher Education programmes to develop teaching practices and support for teachers to identify ways of engaging learners' views on issues in the school in open, dialogical ways. Such Teacher Education programmes should deepen teachers' understandings of learners' zone of proximal development (ZPD), demonstrating how dialogue and scaffolding are part of a teacher's role in supporting learning. This is shown in the three case studies that form part of this study. Finally, the study also deepens insights of using the Cultural Historical Activity theory (CHAT) to shed light on issues surrounding learner participation within the socio-cultural and historical environmental education contexts of the schools. The action competence models used in the study provide a tool for revealing forms of learner participation. This tool can be used for critical reflections and monitoring of teaching practices in schools.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
The influence of introduced forest management practices on transformative social learning in a selected social-ecological forest community : a case of PFM and REDD projects at Pugu and Kazimzumbwi Forest Reserves in Tanzania
- Authors: Ferdinand, Victoria Ugulumu
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Forest management -- Tanzania , Forest reserves -- Tanzania , Transformative learning , Social ecology
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2064 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020333
- Description: This research investigates the influence of introduced forest management approaches on transformative social learning in the community surrounding the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi forest reserves in Tanzania from 2000 to 2015. The term transformative social learning reflects an understanding of learning processes that emerge through conscious changes in the perspectives of individuals or communities while interacting with forest management practices. The investigation explores the learning (if any) that occurred in the community and how and why the learning occurred. It also explores whether the learning was social and transformative and examines the conditions that enable or constrain transformative social learning at the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi community. Thus, the three concepts of social learning, transformative learning, and social practices are central to the research. Participatory Forest Management (PFM) emerged globally in the early 1980s to mobilise rural capabilities and resources in development and environmental stewardship. The Pugu and Kazimzumbwi community was introduced to Participatory Forest Management (PFM) projects by the late 1990s. The recent global focus on empowering communities around forests has drawn attention towards transformational adaptation to climate change impacts and building resilience capacities. As a result, in 2011 the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi community started working with a project for Reduction of Emissions through Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD), which forms a key focus in this study as the most recently introduced PFM with embedded social learning assumptions. This research is designed and conducted as a qualitative case study. The research seeks to study the complex object of socially and contextually constructed learning through a systemic exploration of learning,using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, analysis of documents and archival records as well as observations and a reflexive workshop. Supportive information throughfield notes and audio voice and video recording was also generated. A contextual profile of the research site was conducted in March 2012, prior to the actual data collection in 2013 and 2014. Field explorations during the contextual profile helped to describe the research site and promote initial understanding of the context. During data collection, field inquiries based on interactive relationships between a researcher and participants stimulated practice memories and people’s living experiences with forestry and the introduced PFM projects under examination. Analysis of data employed analytical modes of induction, abduction and retroduction. Thick descriptions of learning obtained from fieldi based interactionswere produced before re-contextualising data through theoretical lenses. The research employed realist social theory by Archer (1995), under-laboured by critical realism, and practice theory advanced by Schatzki (2012) and Kemmis et al. (2014). The research process as a whole was underlaboured by the layered ontology of critical realism which proposes emergence of phenomena in open systems as shaped by interacting mechanisms which in this study were both material / ecological and social /political /economic /cultural. And more...
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Ferdinand, Victoria Ugulumu
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Forest management -- Tanzania , Forest reserves -- Tanzania , Transformative learning , Social ecology
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2064 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020333
- Description: This research investigates the influence of introduced forest management approaches on transformative social learning in the community surrounding the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi forest reserves in Tanzania from 2000 to 2015. The term transformative social learning reflects an understanding of learning processes that emerge through conscious changes in the perspectives of individuals or communities while interacting with forest management practices. The investigation explores the learning (if any) that occurred in the community and how and why the learning occurred. It also explores whether the learning was social and transformative and examines the conditions that enable or constrain transformative social learning at the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi community. Thus, the three concepts of social learning, transformative learning, and social practices are central to the research. Participatory Forest Management (PFM) emerged globally in the early 1980s to mobilise rural capabilities and resources in development and environmental stewardship. The Pugu and Kazimzumbwi community was introduced to Participatory Forest Management (PFM) projects by the late 1990s. The recent global focus on empowering communities around forests has drawn attention towards transformational adaptation to climate change impacts and building resilience capacities. As a result, in 2011 the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi community started working with a project for Reduction of Emissions through Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD), which forms a key focus in this study as the most recently introduced PFM with embedded social learning assumptions. This research is designed and conducted as a qualitative case study. The research seeks to study the complex object of socially and contextually constructed learning through a systemic exploration of learning,using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, analysis of documents and archival records as well as observations and a reflexive workshop. Supportive information throughfield notes and audio voice and video recording was also generated. A contextual profile of the research site was conducted in March 2012, prior to the actual data collection in 2013 and 2014. Field explorations during the contextual profile helped to describe the research site and promote initial understanding of the context. During data collection, field inquiries based on interactive relationships between a researcher and participants stimulated practice memories and people’s living experiences with forestry and the introduced PFM projects under examination. Analysis of data employed analytical modes of induction, abduction and retroduction. Thick descriptions of learning obtained from fieldi based interactionswere produced before re-contextualising data through theoretical lenses. The research employed realist social theory by Archer (1995), under-laboured by critical realism, and practice theory advanced by Schatzki (2012) and Kemmis et al. (2014). The research process as a whole was underlaboured by the layered ontology of critical realism which proposes emergence of phenomena in open systems as shaped by interacting mechanisms which in this study were both material / ecological and social /political /economic /cultural. And more...
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Exploring how teachers acquire content knowledge of marine and coastal issues to contextualize the natural science curriculum
- Authors: Mbuyazwe, Vuyiswa
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:21017 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6016
- Description: The transformation process in the South African curriculum has highlighted a need for teachers to change from being passive implementers of curriculum. They are required to interpret the curriculum, adapt materials and develop lesson plans that will be responsive in their own context. They are also required to use materials and mediate learning. This research explores teacher acquisition of content knowledge on marine and coastal issues and probes how teachers work with materials in the development of lesson plans to contextualize the curriculum. A participatory action research process engaged 3 teachers in a contextualizing process of curriculum development. I started to work with the teachers to adapt and re-develop coastal and marine resources to support learning in local context. The research developed in two phases. The first examined existing teacher knowledge of marine and coastal issues and probed how content was integrated into lesson planning. Teachers identified knowledge acquisition as the priority to enable them to work with the materials and curriculum in their context. The second phase set out to enhance teachers’ knowledge of marine and coastal resources through workshops and field trips to improve the adaptation and use of materials. To document these processes and outcomes in the context of this study, I employed a range of data generation strategies including questionnaires, workshops and classroom observations, field notes, focus group discussion and the review of lesson plans, learners’ work and materials used. All participants collaboratively discussed and reflected on the process, but I was responsible for the final interpretation presented here. This study showed that teachers are still entrenched in their normal practice of working with content as facts and definitions, the delivery of abstract propositions that is not aligned with the curriculum goals. The new curriculum required teachers to change their teaching practice by using materials to mediate learning in context. The data revealed a mismatch between teacher practices and what the curriculum required from them.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Mbuyazwe, Vuyiswa
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:21017 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6016
- Description: The transformation process in the South African curriculum has highlighted a need for teachers to change from being passive implementers of curriculum. They are required to interpret the curriculum, adapt materials and develop lesson plans that will be responsive in their own context. They are also required to use materials and mediate learning. This research explores teacher acquisition of content knowledge on marine and coastal issues and probes how teachers work with materials in the development of lesson plans to contextualize the curriculum. A participatory action research process engaged 3 teachers in a contextualizing process of curriculum development. I started to work with the teachers to adapt and re-develop coastal and marine resources to support learning in local context. The research developed in two phases. The first examined existing teacher knowledge of marine and coastal issues and probed how content was integrated into lesson planning. Teachers identified knowledge acquisition as the priority to enable them to work with the materials and curriculum in their context. The second phase set out to enhance teachers’ knowledge of marine and coastal resources through workshops and field trips to improve the adaptation and use of materials. To document these processes and outcomes in the context of this study, I employed a range of data generation strategies including questionnaires, workshops and classroom observations, field notes, focus group discussion and the review of lesson plans, learners’ work and materials used. All participants collaboratively discussed and reflected on the process, but I was responsible for the final interpretation presented here. This study showed that teachers are still entrenched in their normal practice of working with content as facts and definitions, the delivery of abstract propositions that is not aligned with the curriculum goals. The new curriculum required teachers to change their teaching practice by using materials to mediate learning in context. The data revealed a mismatch between teacher practices and what the curriculum required from them.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Engaging within zones of proximal development on Facebook : the case of using Facebook to support learning and mentoring on a NQF Level 5 environmental education, training and development practices learnership
- Authors: Chetty, Preven
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Social media -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Internet in education , Online social networks , Organizational learning , Employees -- Training of , Group work in education
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2024 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017335
- Description: This study focuses on two roll-outs of a, year-long National Qualification Framework (NQF) level 5, environmental education learnership in South Africa and attempts at enhancing collaborative learning at workplaces using a familiar social networking site called Facebook. This study uses the Facebook group sites created for the workplace course component of the course as one of the means of data collection. Additional interviews and focus groups with learners and administrators on both Environmental Education Training and Development Practices (EETDP) courses also informed the study. The study is located within the context of the rise of the information age, its effects on socio-ecological landscape at large and ways of using social networking sites in order to facilitate scaffolding and meaning making within zones of proximal development for environmental education learnerships. It also looks at the model of apprenticeship and workplace based learning as it is broadly located at the nexus of the SAQA-led academic inquiry into workplace based learning and professional development. It was found that the use of Facebook on the EETDP learnership allowed for collaborative learning to take place between peer to peer interactions as well as between tutors and learners. It was also noted that scaffolding processes requires both technical assistance and strong instructional input from course tutors. One of the most important findings in terms of collaborative learning and engaging within the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) was that learners were able to communicate more effectively and freely with both fellow learners and tutors on course after participating on the Facebook group sites. The study offers recommendations on how a social networking platform like Facebook can be utilised effectively for environmental education. The study recommends that scaffolding of workplace based tasks and concepts needs to be better integrated with the course and in both online and offline interactions between learners. It also illustrates how social networking sites can become powerful tools for creating meaning making when combined with course work.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Chetty, Preven
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Social media -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Internet in education , Online social networks , Organizational learning , Employees -- Training of , Group work in education
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2024 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017335
- Description: This study focuses on two roll-outs of a, year-long National Qualification Framework (NQF) level 5, environmental education learnership in South Africa and attempts at enhancing collaborative learning at workplaces using a familiar social networking site called Facebook. This study uses the Facebook group sites created for the workplace course component of the course as one of the means of data collection. Additional interviews and focus groups with learners and administrators on both Environmental Education Training and Development Practices (EETDP) courses also informed the study. The study is located within the context of the rise of the information age, its effects on socio-ecological landscape at large and ways of using social networking sites in order to facilitate scaffolding and meaning making within zones of proximal development for environmental education learnerships. It also looks at the model of apprenticeship and workplace based learning as it is broadly located at the nexus of the SAQA-led academic inquiry into workplace based learning and professional development. It was found that the use of Facebook on the EETDP learnership allowed for collaborative learning to take place between peer to peer interactions as well as between tutors and learners. It was also noted that scaffolding processes requires both technical assistance and strong instructional input from course tutors. One of the most important findings in terms of collaborative learning and engaging within the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) was that learners were able to communicate more effectively and freely with both fellow learners and tutors on course after participating on the Facebook group sites. The study offers recommendations on how a social networking platform like Facebook can be utilised effectively for environmental education. The study recommends that scaffolding of workplace based tasks and concepts needs to be better integrated with the course and in both online and offline interactions between learners. It also illustrates how social networking sites can become powerful tools for creating meaning making when combined with course work.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Exploring and expanding learning processes in sustainable agriculture workplace contexts
- Authors: Mukute, Mutizwa
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Sustainable agriculture -- Africa, Southern Sustainable development -- Study and teaching -- Africa, Southern Permaculture -- Zimbabwe Organic farming -- South Africa Farmers -- Social conditions -- Africa, Southern Farmers -- Economic conditions -- Africa, Southern Farmers -- Training of -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1539 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003421
- Description: The focus of this study is to explore and expand farmer learning processes in sustainable agriculture workplace contexts. It examines change oriented learning processes in the context of three sustainable agriculture practices. The study begins by discussing the history and emergence of environmental discourses and approaches; sustainable agriculture; and the histories of three kinds of sustainable agriculture practices: Permaculture, Organic Farming and Machobane Farming System. It also traces the evolution of agricultural extension approaches within the wider context of education for sustainable development. The main focus of the study is an exploration of how farmer learning can be mediated through an expansive learning process. The study methodology surfaces some of the contradictions in sustainable agriculture and learning activity systems that farmers encounter in learning and practising sustainable agriculture. It uses these contradictions as sources of expansive learning in and between the respective activity systems of farmers, sustainable agriculture facilitators, agricultural extension workers (conventional) and organic entrepreneurs. As shown in the study, the expansive learning processes result in the modelling, implementation and reviewing of solutions to contradictions being faced in the learning and practice of sustainable agriculture. The study also proposes a number of tools that can be adapted and used by development farmers and agricultural trainers to examine and expand learning as well as build farmer agency. The study was conducted in three case study sites in Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe the study is located in Hwedza district in the St Margaret Primary School and community that learn, practise and facilitate the learning of Permaculture within the Schools and Colleges Permaculture Programme (SCOPE). The second study site is in South Africa: Durban urban and peri-urban areas where a community of organic farmers, facilitators and entrepreneurs coordinate the marketing of their produce through Isidore Farm and Earth Mother Organic and support each other to learn and practise organic farming. The third study site is based in the Mafeteng and Mohale‟s Hoek districts of Lesotho where the focus was on farmers who learn and practise the Machobane Farming System (MFS) and are supported in this by the Rural Self Development Association (RSDA) and the Machobane Agricultural Development Foundation (MADF). Drawing on three sensitising concepts of dialectics, reflexivity and agency, the study worked with Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) underpinned by critical realism to reveal how farmer learning is mediated and expanded. The theory of practice/habitus also provided a useful theoretical lens with which to examine data generated. Using a two-phased, multiple embedded case study approach, the study worked within the broad framework of social learning. It used semi-structured individual and group interviews, observations and document analysis to explore learning processes and generate „mirror‟ data. This data was then used in Change Laboratory Workshops, within the Developmental Work Research methodology, where double stimulation and focus group discussions contributed to expanding learning processes. Drawing on critical realism the study used inductive, abductive and retroductive modes of inference to analyse data in each case study as well as across case studies. The findings of the study reveal that farmer learning is influenced by both intrinsic motives, such as identity, and extrinsic motives which are primarily associated with economic, ecological and health benefits. Farmers learn through scaffolding and mediating tools that link everyday and scientific knowledge. They also learn from fellow farmers through observation, practising and experimentation. Some of the issues that were raised in connection with farmer learning processes are: language; time to learn, practice and appropriate concepts; time to improve the natural resource base while at the same time improving income generation; and responses to climate change. The study also found that farmer learning and practice of sustainable agriculture in the case studies investigated, is influenced by past and current agricultural and educational policies; societal values and attitudes; social and cultural backgrounds; work affordances and gender relations; quality of training offered; poverty; and, HIV and AIDS. In the second phase of the study, which built on the problematic situations being encountered by research participants (sustainable agriculture farmers, sustainable agriculture facilitators, extension workers, and organic marketers) to surface contradictions, the main finding was that the expansive learning process has potential to enhance farmer learning and practice of sustainable agriculture. It does this by mobilising distributed cognition among participants as well as their preparedness to act. Through the expansive learning processes in each case study, research participants were able to question their practices, surface contradictions, model solutions and implement them, and thus build individual, collective and relational agency reflexively. Observation of this required micro-analysis of agentive talk and reflective talk. The study contributes in-depth insight into participatory research and learning processes, especially within the context of people-centred learning and innovation in the agricultural development arena. It provides empirical and explanatory insight into how change oriented social learning can emerge and be expanded in Education for Sustainable Development, explaining learning and change relationships in three sustainable agricultural practices. It also provides learning and extension tools to work with contradictions that arise from intentionality, experience, context and history in farming and training activity systems. Its key contribution lies in providing in-depth insight into mobilisation of human agency and reflexivity in change oriented sustainable agriculture learning and development, processes that are critical for responding to contemporary socio-ecological issues and risks.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Mukute, Mutizwa
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Sustainable agriculture -- Africa, Southern Sustainable development -- Study and teaching -- Africa, Southern Permaculture -- Zimbabwe Organic farming -- South Africa Farmers -- Social conditions -- Africa, Southern Farmers -- Economic conditions -- Africa, Southern Farmers -- Training of -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1539 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003421
- Description: The focus of this study is to explore and expand farmer learning processes in sustainable agriculture workplace contexts. It examines change oriented learning processes in the context of three sustainable agriculture practices. The study begins by discussing the history and emergence of environmental discourses and approaches; sustainable agriculture; and the histories of three kinds of sustainable agriculture practices: Permaculture, Organic Farming and Machobane Farming System. It also traces the evolution of agricultural extension approaches within the wider context of education for sustainable development. The main focus of the study is an exploration of how farmer learning can be mediated through an expansive learning process. The study methodology surfaces some of the contradictions in sustainable agriculture and learning activity systems that farmers encounter in learning and practising sustainable agriculture. It uses these contradictions as sources of expansive learning in and between the respective activity systems of farmers, sustainable agriculture facilitators, agricultural extension workers (conventional) and organic entrepreneurs. As shown in the study, the expansive learning processes result in the modelling, implementation and reviewing of solutions to contradictions being faced in the learning and practice of sustainable agriculture. The study also proposes a number of tools that can be adapted and used by development farmers and agricultural trainers to examine and expand learning as well as build farmer agency. The study was conducted in three case study sites in Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe the study is located in Hwedza district in the St Margaret Primary School and community that learn, practise and facilitate the learning of Permaculture within the Schools and Colleges Permaculture Programme (SCOPE). The second study site is in South Africa: Durban urban and peri-urban areas where a community of organic farmers, facilitators and entrepreneurs coordinate the marketing of their produce through Isidore Farm and Earth Mother Organic and support each other to learn and practise organic farming. The third study site is based in the Mafeteng and Mohale‟s Hoek districts of Lesotho where the focus was on farmers who learn and practise the Machobane Farming System (MFS) and are supported in this by the Rural Self Development Association (RSDA) and the Machobane Agricultural Development Foundation (MADF). Drawing on three sensitising concepts of dialectics, reflexivity and agency, the study worked with Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) underpinned by critical realism to reveal how farmer learning is mediated and expanded. The theory of practice/habitus also provided a useful theoretical lens with which to examine data generated. Using a two-phased, multiple embedded case study approach, the study worked within the broad framework of social learning. It used semi-structured individual and group interviews, observations and document analysis to explore learning processes and generate „mirror‟ data. This data was then used in Change Laboratory Workshops, within the Developmental Work Research methodology, where double stimulation and focus group discussions contributed to expanding learning processes. Drawing on critical realism the study used inductive, abductive and retroductive modes of inference to analyse data in each case study as well as across case studies. The findings of the study reveal that farmer learning is influenced by both intrinsic motives, such as identity, and extrinsic motives which are primarily associated with economic, ecological and health benefits. Farmers learn through scaffolding and mediating tools that link everyday and scientific knowledge. They also learn from fellow farmers through observation, practising and experimentation. Some of the issues that were raised in connection with farmer learning processes are: language; time to learn, practice and appropriate concepts; time to improve the natural resource base while at the same time improving income generation; and responses to climate change. The study also found that farmer learning and practice of sustainable agriculture in the case studies investigated, is influenced by past and current agricultural and educational policies; societal values and attitudes; social and cultural backgrounds; work affordances and gender relations; quality of training offered; poverty; and, HIV and AIDS. In the second phase of the study, which built on the problematic situations being encountered by research participants (sustainable agriculture farmers, sustainable agriculture facilitators, extension workers, and organic marketers) to surface contradictions, the main finding was that the expansive learning process has potential to enhance farmer learning and practice of sustainable agriculture. It does this by mobilising distributed cognition among participants as well as their preparedness to act. Through the expansive learning processes in each case study, research participants were able to question their practices, surface contradictions, model solutions and implement them, and thus build individual, collective and relational agency reflexively. Observation of this required micro-analysis of agentive talk and reflective talk. The study contributes in-depth insight into participatory research and learning processes, especially within the context of people-centred learning and innovation in the agricultural development arena. It provides empirical and explanatory insight into how change oriented social learning can emerge and be expanded in Education for Sustainable Development, explaining learning and change relationships in three sustainable agricultural practices. It also provides learning and extension tools to work with contradictions that arise from intentionality, experience, context and history in farming and training activity systems. Its key contribution lies in providing in-depth insight into mobilisation of human agency and reflexivity in change oriented sustainable agriculture learning and development, processes that are critical for responding to contemporary socio-ecological issues and risks.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
Investigating how mediation tools enhance rural farmers’ learning towards rainwater harvesting and food security: a case study of a Green Village programme
- Authors: Shawarira, Patience
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Mediated learning experience , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Sinxaku , Agricultural education -- South Africa -- Sinxaku , South Africa. Water Research Commission. Green Village Lighthouse
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/96779 , vital:31319
- Description: Training programmes are often detached from people’s context and experiences. It is critical that training programmes are carefully situated and relevant to the target group. This can be achieved through the use of relevant mediation tools. This study investigates how the use of mediation tools within a training programme on rainwater harvesting and conservation conducted by the Water Research Commission (WRC) funded the Green Village project impacted on Community Works Project (CWP) farmers’ practices. The study looks at how rural farmer learning occurs through the use of mediation tools in the context of the CWP farmers operating in Sinxaku village, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The learning process in this study was tracked through observing a three-day training workshop. I observed the Green Village facilitator’s choice and use of mediation tools to facilitate learning during the training. I looked at ways in which the Green Village facilitator engaged with the participants during the training and how they used different mediation tools to aid the learning process. I was interested in how the CWP farmers engaged with the mediation tools and how learning occurred from the training. I also looked out for changes in the CWP farmers’ farming practices following the completion of the training. The study constituted as an interpretative case study using Cultural Historical Activity (CHAT) theoretical tools. The study also drew on previous research on mediation and learning processes in the water management sector. Using interviews, observations and document analyses, the study found that rural farmers learn better by practising what they are being taught. They also learn from visuals and illustrations as these explain technical concepts in a clear and easy to understand manner. Factors that impact on rural farmer learning, particularly in the context of the CWP farmers operating in Sinxaku village include ecological factors, availability of farm equipment and the structuring of the training programme. The study found that in facilitating a training programme with rural farmers, more time should be given to practical activities at the demonstration site and that these practical activities should be interspersed with knowledge sharing in a workshop setup. The study concluded that special attention should be given to the choice of mediation tools used in training programmes involving rural farmers. Attention should also be given to contextual factors that can potentially impact on learning and practice of rainwater harvesting and conservation practices that would have been taught in a training programme.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Shawarira, Patience
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Mediated learning experience , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Sinxaku , Agricultural education -- South Africa -- Sinxaku , South Africa. Water Research Commission. Green Village Lighthouse
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/96779 , vital:31319
- Description: Training programmes are often detached from people’s context and experiences. It is critical that training programmes are carefully situated and relevant to the target group. This can be achieved through the use of relevant mediation tools. This study investigates how the use of mediation tools within a training programme on rainwater harvesting and conservation conducted by the Water Research Commission (WRC) funded the Green Village project impacted on Community Works Project (CWP) farmers’ practices. The study looks at how rural farmer learning occurs through the use of mediation tools in the context of the CWP farmers operating in Sinxaku village, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The learning process in this study was tracked through observing a three-day training workshop. I observed the Green Village facilitator’s choice and use of mediation tools to facilitate learning during the training. I looked at ways in which the Green Village facilitator engaged with the participants during the training and how they used different mediation tools to aid the learning process. I was interested in how the CWP farmers engaged with the mediation tools and how learning occurred from the training. I also looked out for changes in the CWP farmers’ farming practices following the completion of the training. The study constituted as an interpretative case study using Cultural Historical Activity (CHAT) theoretical tools. The study also drew on previous research on mediation and learning processes in the water management sector. Using interviews, observations and document analyses, the study found that rural farmers learn better by practising what they are being taught. They also learn from visuals and illustrations as these explain technical concepts in a clear and easy to understand manner. Factors that impact on rural farmer learning, particularly in the context of the CWP farmers operating in Sinxaku village include ecological factors, availability of farm equipment and the structuring of the training programme. The study found that in facilitating a training programme with rural farmers, more time should be given to practical activities at the demonstration site and that these practical activities should be interspersed with knowledge sharing in a workshop setup. The study concluded that special attention should be given to the choice of mediation tools used in training programmes involving rural farmers. Attention should also be given to contextual factors that can potentially impact on learning and practice of rainwater harvesting and conservation practices that would have been taught in a training programme.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
The significance of the local trade in natural resource products for livelihoods and poverty alleviation in South Africa
- Authors: Shackleton, Sheona E
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Poverty -- South Africa Rural poor -- South Africa Natural resources -- South Africa Selling -- Handicraft South Africa -- Commerce
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:4776 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011731
- Description: What role can the commercialisation of natural resource products play in the efforts to reduce poverty and vulnerability and how can this be enhanced? With poverty alleviation at the top of the global development agenda, this is a question posed by many scholars, practitioners, donor agencies and government departments operating at the environment-development interface. However, recent commentary on this issue is mixed and ambiguous, with some observers being quite optimistic regarding the potential of these products, while others hold a counter view. This thesis explores the livelihood contributions and poverty alleviation potential of four products traded locally in the Bushbuckridge municipality, South Africa; namely traditional brooms, reed mats, woodcraft and a beer made from the fruits of Sclerocarya birrea. A common approach, employing both quantitative and qualitative methods, was used to investigate the harvesting, processing and marketing arrangements, sustainability and livelihood contributions of each product. The results illustrate that any inference regarding the potential of the trade to alleviate poverty depends on how poverty is defined and interpreted, and on whether the role of these products is assessed from a holistic livelihood perspective that includes notions of vulnerability, alternatives and choice, diversification and the needs of rural producers themselves. Overall, the products studied were key in enhancing the livelihood security of the poorest members of society, forming an important safety net and assisting in raising household incomes to levels equivalent to the wider population, but generally were unlikely, on their own, to provide a route out of poverty. However, there were notable exceptions, with marked variation evident both within and across products. Incomes often surpassed local wage rates, and a minority of producers were obtaining returns equivalent to or greater than the official minimum wage. Other benefits, such as the opportunity to work from home or to diversify the livelihood portfolio, were also crucial, with the trade representing different livelihood strategies for different households. When viewed within the context of rising unemployment and HIV/AIDS these findings assume greater significance. While the trades were complex and growth limited, livelihood benefits could be improved on a sustainable basis if the sector was given the attention and support it deserves.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Shackleton, Sheona E
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Poverty -- South Africa Rural poor -- South Africa Natural resources -- South Africa Selling -- Handicraft South Africa -- Commerce
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:4776 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011731
- Description: What role can the commercialisation of natural resource products play in the efforts to reduce poverty and vulnerability and how can this be enhanced? With poverty alleviation at the top of the global development agenda, this is a question posed by many scholars, practitioners, donor agencies and government departments operating at the environment-development interface. However, recent commentary on this issue is mixed and ambiguous, with some observers being quite optimistic regarding the potential of these products, while others hold a counter view. This thesis explores the livelihood contributions and poverty alleviation potential of four products traded locally in the Bushbuckridge municipality, South Africa; namely traditional brooms, reed mats, woodcraft and a beer made from the fruits of Sclerocarya birrea. A common approach, employing both quantitative and qualitative methods, was used to investigate the harvesting, processing and marketing arrangements, sustainability and livelihood contributions of each product. The results illustrate that any inference regarding the potential of the trade to alleviate poverty depends on how poverty is defined and interpreted, and on whether the role of these products is assessed from a holistic livelihood perspective that includes notions of vulnerability, alternatives and choice, diversification and the needs of rural producers themselves. Overall, the products studied were key in enhancing the livelihood security of the poorest members of society, forming an important safety net and assisting in raising household incomes to levels equivalent to the wider population, but generally were unlikely, on their own, to provide a route out of poverty. However, there were notable exceptions, with marked variation evident both within and across products. Incomes often surpassed local wage rates, and a minority of producers were obtaining returns equivalent to or greater than the official minimum wage. Other benefits, such as the opportunity to work from home or to diversify the livelihood portfolio, were also crucial, with the trade representing different livelihood strategies for different households. When viewed within the context of rising unemployment and HIV/AIDS these findings assume greater significance. While the trades were complex and growth limited, livelihood benefits could be improved on a sustainable basis if the sector was given the attention and support it deserves.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
How policy discourses and contextual realities influence environmental teaching and learning processes in early childhood development: a case study of the Raglan Road child care centre
- Authors: Vallabh, Priya
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Early childhood education -- South Africa , Health education -- South Africa , Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- South Africa , Day care centers -- South Africa , Child development
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1559 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003441 , Early childhood education -- South Africa , Health education -- South Africa , Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- South Africa , Day care centers -- South Africa , Child development
- Description: This case study considers the relationship between context, school policy and environmental teaching and learning processes at a community-based early childhood development centre in South Africa. The study recognises that educational practices in the early childhood development field are shaped by historical, cultural, economic and political realities at both local and national levels. It is from the understanding that each school is a unique composition of these shaping factors that the research was designed to consider the community-based school participating in this study. By compiling a contextual profile, this study attempts to consider dominant contextual factors affecting the school. Through the critical discourse analysis of a school policy document, this study considers local level policy, and through the literature chapter, national policy. Teacher interviews provide insight into teacher understanding of school policy in response to contextual issues, as well as providing insight into how teachers perceive their translation of policy into teaching practice. Observations of lessons in the centre provided an. opportunity to see how context and policy translated into and influenced environmental teaching and learning processes. This study looks at how environmental education is addressed in the Raglan Road Child Care Centre, and provides insight into how environmental education within the context of the school and in relation to school policy may be strengthened. It comments on the tensions and ambivalences arising from the relationships between context, policy and environmental teaching and learning processes and makes recommendations to address these ambivalences in ways that are contextually relevant. The main recommendations were designed to be practically useful for the school involved in the study and are focused around engaging the ambivalences emerging from this study to open up 'spaces' for deliberating environmental teaching and learning processes and other tensions arising out of the study at an ECD level. Recommendations included: 1) engaging with the strong development focus in school policy and the educational focus in national policy and teacher discourse; 2) deliberating the ways in which school policy and national policy respond to risk; 3) engaging with the ambivalence in the school-parent relationship; 4) the re-alignment of the explicit curriculum and broadening the contextually-based view of whole child development; and 5) engaging the ambivalence in approaches to education at the centre.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Vallabh, Priya
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Early childhood education -- South Africa , Health education -- South Africa , Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- South Africa , Day care centers -- South Africa , Child development
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1559 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003441 , Early childhood education -- South Africa , Health education -- South Africa , Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- South Africa , Day care centers -- South Africa , Child development
- Description: This case study considers the relationship between context, school policy and environmental teaching and learning processes at a community-based early childhood development centre in South Africa. The study recognises that educational practices in the early childhood development field are shaped by historical, cultural, economic and political realities at both local and national levels. It is from the understanding that each school is a unique composition of these shaping factors that the research was designed to consider the community-based school participating in this study. By compiling a contextual profile, this study attempts to consider dominant contextual factors affecting the school. Through the critical discourse analysis of a school policy document, this study considers local level policy, and through the literature chapter, national policy. Teacher interviews provide insight into teacher understanding of school policy in response to contextual issues, as well as providing insight into how teachers perceive their translation of policy into teaching practice. Observations of lessons in the centre provided an. opportunity to see how context and policy translated into and influenced environmental teaching and learning processes. This study looks at how environmental education is addressed in the Raglan Road Child Care Centre, and provides insight into how environmental education within the context of the school and in relation to school policy may be strengthened. It comments on the tensions and ambivalences arising from the relationships between context, policy and environmental teaching and learning processes and makes recommendations to address these ambivalences in ways that are contextually relevant. The main recommendations were designed to be practically useful for the school involved in the study and are focused around engaging the ambivalences emerging from this study to open up 'spaces' for deliberating environmental teaching and learning processes and other tensions arising out of the study at an ECD level. Recommendations included: 1) engaging with the strong development focus in school policy and the educational focus in national policy and teacher discourse; 2) deliberating the ways in which school policy and national policy respond to risk; 3) engaging with the ambivalence in the school-parent relationship; 4) the re-alignment of the explicit curriculum and broadening the contextually-based view of whole child development; and 5) engaging the ambivalence in approaches to education at the centre.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
The use of environmental education learning support materials in OBE the: case of the Creative Solutions to Waste project
- Authors: Mbanjwa, Sibonelo Glenton
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Competency-based education -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Health education -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Creative Solutions to Waste Project
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1811 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003697
- Description: The Creative Solutions to Waste Project (CSW) is a local environmental education project, involving five Grahamstown schools, the local municipality; community members and the Rhodes University Environmental Education Unit, where I worked at the time this study was undertaken. In this research I explore the use of environmental education learning support materials (LSM) in Outcomes Based Education (OBE). I have employed a participatory action research approach informed by critical theory in this case study of the Creative Solutions to Waste project (CSW). The research focused on the ‘Waste Education’ materials and their use, developed and piloted during the pilot phase. The Waste Education materials were also used in phase one. In phase two, the research focused on the use of ‘Health and Water’ learning support materials in 4 Grahamstown schools. Research participants included educators, support team members, municipal officials, Department of Education officials, Department of Health (Eastern Cape) officials, the Health Promoting Schools committee and NGO representatives. I employed a range of data collection strategies including questionnaires, observations, field notes, semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, workshops, reflective journal, videotapes, and photographs and documents analysis. The research process was collaboratively discussed and agreed upon by all the participants. This research indicated that the purpose influences the use of LSM. It also indicated the importance of mediation processes in the use of LSM. This study indicates that the designs of LSM and particular views of learning influence the way LSM are used. It does that by looking at how an active learning framework influenced the use of learning support materials and consequent learning processes. It also highlights the significance of paying attention to issues of language and literacy in the design of LSM, and how these factors influence the use of LSM. It also identified the tension between prescriptive and open-ended processes to professional development in supporting the use of LSM in contexts of curriculum change and transformation. This study also indicated the importance of reflexive processes to improve support process in the CSW project by demonstrating how the contributions and the roles of the support team were reflexively changed. I have reviewed the research processes in relation to the research design decisions made at the start of the project. This study lastly offers some recommendations for further research into the use of LSM, and how an understanding of LSM use may influence the development of LSM.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
- Authors: Mbanjwa, Sibonelo Glenton
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Competency-based education -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Health education -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Creative Solutions to Waste Project
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1811 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003697
- Description: The Creative Solutions to Waste Project (CSW) is a local environmental education project, involving five Grahamstown schools, the local municipality; community members and the Rhodes University Environmental Education Unit, where I worked at the time this study was undertaken. In this research I explore the use of environmental education learning support materials (LSM) in Outcomes Based Education (OBE). I have employed a participatory action research approach informed by critical theory in this case study of the Creative Solutions to Waste project (CSW). The research focused on the ‘Waste Education’ materials and their use, developed and piloted during the pilot phase. The Waste Education materials were also used in phase one. In phase two, the research focused on the use of ‘Health and Water’ learning support materials in 4 Grahamstown schools. Research participants included educators, support team members, municipal officials, Department of Education officials, Department of Health (Eastern Cape) officials, the Health Promoting Schools committee and NGO representatives. I employed a range of data collection strategies including questionnaires, observations, field notes, semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, workshops, reflective journal, videotapes, and photographs and documents analysis. The research process was collaboratively discussed and agreed upon by all the participants. This research indicated that the purpose influences the use of LSM. It also indicated the importance of mediation processes in the use of LSM. This study indicates that the designs of LSM and particular views of learning influence the way LSM are used. It does that by looking at how an active learning framework influenced the use of learning support materials and consequent learning processes. It also highlights the significance of paying attention to issues of language and literacy in the design of LSM, and how these factors influence the use of LSM. It also identified the tension between prescriptive and open-ended processes to professional development in supporting the use of LSM in contexts of curriculum change and transformation. This study also indicated the importance of reflexive processes to improve support process in the CSW project by demonstrating how the contributions and the roles of the support team were reflexively changed. I have reviewed the research processes in relation to the research design decisions made at the start of the project. This study lastly offers some recommendations for further research into the use of LSM, and how an understanding of LSM use may influence the development of LSM.
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- Date Issued: 2003