A critical ethnographic study of report writing as a literacy practice by automotive engineers
- Authors: Harran, Marcelle
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: English language -- Written English -- South Africa Written communication -- South Africa Literacy -- Social aspects -- South Africa Engineers -- Language -- South Africa Communication in engineering -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1476 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003357
- Description: This study describes the social practices involved in the situated activity of report writing in an engineering automotive discourse community in South Africa. In particular, the study focuses on the subjectivity of predominantly English Second Language (ESL) engineers writing reports by determining what literacy means to them and what meanings they give to dominant literacy practices in report writing, especially feedback in text production. In the South African engineering workplace, because of the diversity and complexity of language and identity issues, the appropriation of the required literacy skills tends to be multifaceted. This context is made more complex as English is the business language upon which engineering is based with engineering competence often related to English proficiency. Therefore, the study is located within the understanding that literacy is always situated within specific discoursal practices whose ideologies, beliefs, power relations, values and identities are manifested rhetorically. The basis for this critical theory of literacy is the assertion that literacy is a social practice which involves not only observable units of behaviour but values, attitudes, feelings and social relationships. As the institution’s socio-cultural context in the form of embedded historical and institutional forces impact on writer identity and writing practices or ways of doing report writing, notions of writing as a transparent and autonomous system are also challenged. As critical ethnography is concerned with multiple perspectives, it was selected as the preferred methodology and critical realism to derive definitions of truth and validity. Critical ethnography explores cultural orientations of local practice contexts and incorporates multiple understandings providing a holistic understanding of the complexity of writing practices. As human experience can only be known under particular descriptions, usually in terms of available discourses such as language, writing and rhetoric, the dominant practices emerging in response to the report acceptance event are explored, especially that of supervisor feedback practices as they causally impact on report-writing practices during the practice of report acceptance. Although critical realism does not necessarily demonstrate successful causal explanations, it does look for substantial relations within wider contexts to illuminate part-whole relationships. Therefore, an attempt is made to find representativeness or fit with situated engineering literacy practices and wider and changing literacy contexts, especially the impact of Higher Education and world Englishes as well as the expanding influence of technological and digital systems on report-writing practices.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Harran, Marcelle
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: English language -- Written English -- South Africa Written communication -- South Africa Literacy -- Social aspects -- South Africa Engineers -- Language -- South Africa Communication in engineering -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1476 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003357
- Description: This study describes the social practices involved in the situated activity of report writing in an engineering automotive discourse community in South Africa. In particular, the study focuses on the subjectivity of predominantly English Second Language (ESL) engineers writing reports by determining what literacy means to them and what meanings they give to dominant literacy practices in report writing, especially feedback in text production. In the South African engineering workplace, because of the diversity and complexity of language and identity issues, the appropriation of the required literacy skills tends to be multifaceted. This context is made more complex as English is the business language upon which engineering is based with engineering competence often related to English proficiency. Therefore, the study is located within the understanding that literacy is always situated within specific discoursal practices whose ideologies, beliefs, power relations, values and identities are manifested rhetorically. The basis for this critical theory of literacy is the assertion that literacy is a social practice which involves not only observable units of behaviour but values, attitudes, feelings and social relationships. As the institution’s socio-cultural context in the form of embedded historical and institutional forces impact on writer identity and writing practices or ways of doing report writing, notions of writing as a transparent and autonomous system are also challenged. As critical ethnography is concerned with multiple perspectives, it was selected as the preferred methodology and critical realism to derive definitions of truth and validity. Critical ethnography explores cultural orientations of local practice contexts and incorporates multiple understandings providing a holistic understanding of the complexity of writing practices. As human experience can only be known under particular descriptions, usually in terms of available discourses such as language, writing and rhetoric, the dominant practices emerging in response to the report acceptance event are explored, especially that of supervisor feedback practices as they causally impact on report-writing practices during the practice of report acceptance. Although critical realism does not necessarily demonstrate successful causal explanations, it does look for substantial relations within wider contexts to illuminate part-whole relationships. Therefore, an attempt is made to find representativeness or fit with situated engineering literacy practices and wider and changing literacy contexts, especially the impact of Higher Education and world Englishes as well as the expanding influence of technological and digital systems on report-writing practices.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Lecturer and student perceptions of an academic writing task
- Authors: Olivier-Shaw, Amanda
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Education, Higher Communicative competence Thought and thinking -- Study and teaching (Higher) Academic writing -- Study and teaching Philosophy -- Study and teaching (Higher) Language and education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1665 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003548
- Description: This research considers the perceptions of an academic writing task held by a lecturer and first year students in the Philosophy department at the University of Zululand. The research takes as its starting point the following premises: that language is inextricably linked to learning; that each academic discipline has a particular discourse which students have to acquire in order to participate as accepted members of the academic community; that learning proceeds most effectively when teaching starts with what is known and moves into the unknown; and that learning takes place through experience and involvement, rather than transmission. The research suggests that many first year students bring with them to university an understanding of the nature of learning and of knowledge which makes it difficult for them to understand the implicit rules of the discourse of analytical philosophy. My investigation uncovered several of these rules in the study guide written for the course, but it appears that students were not able to discover them and, as a result, experienced great difficulty in fulfilling the assignment task in a way which promoted their understanding of the content. The research also shows that the lecturer's expectations of the task were far removed from the manner in which the students implemented the task. It is argued that the students appear to have reverted to their established writing strategies which consisted of simply repeating what the 'authority' has said. From this it is argued that unless rules of the discourse are made explicit to students, and students understand the content of the course, they will revert to copying and relying on other sources to tell them what to write. One way of making these rules explicit and encouraging students to integrate new knowledge with previous knowledge which they bring with them to university is through providing well-structured writing tasks, and where necessary, developing clearly defined assessment procedures. Writing is the principal means of mediation between the lecturer, who is trying to offer students entry into the discipline, and the student apprentice trying to make sense of the discipline and find his or her own 'voice' within that discipline.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1996
- Authors: Olivier-Shaw, Amanda
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Education, Higher Communicative competence Thought and thinking -- Study and teaching (Higher) Academic writing -- Study and teaching Philosophy -- Study and teaching (Higher) Language and education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1665 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003548
- Description: This research considers the perceptions of an academic writing task held by a lecturer and first year students in the Philosophy department at the University of Zululand. The research takes as its starting point the following premises: that language is inextricably linked to learning; that each academic discipline has a particular discourse which students have to acquire in order to participate as accepted members of the academic community; that learning proceeds most effectively when teaching starts with what is known and moves into the unknown; and that learning takes place through experience and involvement, rather than transmission. The research suggests that many first year students bring with them to university an understanding of the nature of learning and of knowledge which makes it difficult for them to understand the implicit rules of the discourse of analytical philosophy. My investigation uncovered several of these rules in the study guide written for the course, but it appears that students were not able to discover them and, as a result, experienced great difficulty in fulfilling the assignment task in a way which promoted their understanding of the content. The research also shows that the lecturer's expectations of the task were far removed from the manner in which the students implemented the task. It is argued that the students appear to have reverted to their established writing strategies which consisted of simply repeating what the 'authority' has said. From this it is argued that unless rules of the discourse are made explicit to students, and students understand the content of the course, they will revert to copying and relying on other sources to tell them what to write. One way of making these rules explicit and encouraging students to integrate new knowledge with previous knowledge which they bring with them to university is through providing well-structured writing tasks, and where necessary, developing clearly defined assessment procedures. Writing is the principal means of mediation between the lecturer, who is trying to offer students entry into the discipline, and the student apprentice trying to make sense of the discipline and find his or her own 'voice' within that discipline.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1996
A critical realist account of a mentoring programme in the Faculty of Pharmacy at Rhodes University
- Authors: Oltmann, Carmen
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Rhodes University -- Academic Development Programme Pharmacy -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa Mentoring in education -- South Africa Mentoring in Science -- South Africa Critical realism Communities of practice
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3781 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003259
- Description: This study originates from experiences I had as supervisor of the mentoring programme for first year students in the Faculty of Pharmacy, at Rhodes University. Our mentoring programme is a strategy for first year students – specifically those from previously disadvantaged backgrounds – to succeed at Rhodes University. Using an ontological meta-theory - critical realism - as my analytical lens, discourse as my unit of analysis, and Invitational Learning Theory as a theoretical tool I developed a model of mentoring based on Bhaskar’s transformational model (1993). This model illustrates the relationship between structure, culture and agency. Whilst developing this model I focussed on determining how mentors construct mentoring, and how mentoring facilitates access to a Community of Practice (CoP). Mentoring involves providing a shared space that is safe, that the mentor and mentee feel comfortable in, and that supports and challenges both the mentor and the mentee. It is a reciprocal, developmental relationship for both the mentor and the mentee that deals with issues that the mentee deems as ‘real’. Mentoring is a process, not an outcome. The mentoring strategies that the mentors employed changed as the mentors mentored. Mentors help mentees by using structures and mechanisms that worked for them, and/or by helping mentees access these structures and mechanisms. Mentoring facilitates access to a CoP by providing opportunities for engagement. This involves sharing of experiences and knowledge, and promoting discussion. The mentor helps the mentee move from being a peripheral member of the CoP to becoming a main member, i.e., becoming active, learning with and from others within the CoP. CoPs develop social capital and knowledge management. My research suggests that the knowledge, skills and attitude developed by the mentors within this study may be transferable to other aspects in Pharmacy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Oltmann, Carmen
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Rhodes University -- Academic Development Programme Pharmacy -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa Mentoring in education -- South Africa Mentoring in Science -- South Africa Critical realism Communities of practice
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3781 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003259
- Description: This study originates from experiences I had as supervisor of the mentoring programme for first year students in the Faculty of Pharmacy, at Rhodes University. Our mentoring programme is a strategy for first year students – specifically those from previously disadvantaged backgrounds – to succeed at Rhodes University. Using an ontological meta-theory - critical realism - as my analytical lens, discourse as my unit of analysis, and Invitational Learning Theory as a theoretical tool I developed a model of mentoring based on Bhaskar’s transformational model (1993). This model illustrates the relationship between structure, culture and agency. Whilst developing this model I focussed on determining how mentors construct mentoring, and how mentoring facilitates access to a Community of Practice (CoP). Mentoring involves providing a shared space that is safe, that the mentor and mentee feel comfortable in, and that supports and challenges both the mentor and the mentee. It is a reciprocal, developmental relationship for both the mentor and the mentee that deals with issues that the mentee deems as ‘real’. Mentoring is a process, not an outcome. The mentoring strategies that the mentors employed changed as the mentors mentored. Mentors help mentees by using structures and mechanisms that worked for them, and/or by helping mentees access these structures and mechanisms. Mentoring facilitates access to a CoP by providing opportunities for engagement. This involves sharing of experiences and knowledge, and promoting discussion. The mentor helps the mentee move from being a peripheral member of the CoP to becoming a main member, i.e., becoming active, learning with and from others within the CoP. CoPs develop social capital and knowledge management. My research suggests that the knowledge, skills and attitude developed by the mentors within this study may be transferable to other aspects in Pharmacy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Regionalism and conflict resolution in the Horn of Africa : the role of inter-governmental authority on development in the Sudanese civil war
- Authors: Onyango, Moses
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: Africa, Northeast -- Politics and government -- 1900-1974 , Africa, Northeast -- Politics and government -- 1974- , Africa, Northeast -- Foreign relations -- 1974- , Federal government -- Africa, Northeast , Sudan -- History -- Civil War, 1955-1972 , Mediation, International , Culture conflict Sudan
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2869 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007715 , Africa, Northeast -- Politics and government -- 1900-1974 , Africa, Northeast -- Politics and government -- 1974- , Africa, Northeast -- Foreign relations -- 1974- , Federal government -- Africa, Northeast , Sudan -- History -- Civil War, 1955-1972 , Mediation, International , Culture conflict Sudan
- Description: This thesis expounds the theoretical underpinnings of problem-solving approach to conflict resolution. It also criticizes the traditional state-centric approach to conflict resolution being followed by the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in the Sudanese civil war. IGAD was initially known as Inter Governmental Authority on Drought and Desertification (IGADD), but was renamed IGAD in 1996. Its objectives were reformulated to give priority to conflict prevention, resolution, and management, and humanitarian affairs. It is stipulated in the thesis that IGAD faces problems that need attention if the Sudanese civil war is to be resolved. A key problem is that while IGAD's objectives were reformulated to give priority to conflict resolution, IGAD's management structure has remained the same. The management structure is state-centric and lacks neutrality, which is a very important ingredient in deep-rooted social conflict resolution. The management structure, which was initially based on combating drought and desertification, was not restructured to conform to the realities of a problem solving approach to conflict resolution. The committee that was formed to look into the Sudanese conflict is composed of states in dispute with Sudan. The other structural problem cited in the thesis is that the IGAD peace process is cumbersome and does not include all aggrieved parties. The meetings involve heads of state, ministers, ambassadors and other government representatives. The peace process is not inclusive of other important players such as other rebel movements. This thesis concludes that: 1. there is a need for peace keeping forces from neutral African Union (AU) member states; 2. conflict resolution specialists are deployed in the region whose main task would be to assist the belligerent groups to reach a common understanding of their problems; 3. the United Nations (UN) acts proactively to create international awareness to the Sudanese problem.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
- Authors: Onyango, Moses
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: Africa, Northeast -- Politics and government -- 1900-1974 , Africa, Northeast -- Politics and government -- 1974- , Africa, Northeast -- Foreign relations -- 1974- , Federal government -- Africa, Northeast , Sudan -- History -- Civil War, 1955-1972 , Mediation, International , Culture conflict Sudan
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2869 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007715 , Africa, Northeast -- Politics and government -- 1900-1974 , Africa, Northeast -- Politics and government -- 1974- , Africa, Northeast -- Foreign relations -- 1974- , Federal government -- Africa, Northeast , Sudan -- History -- Civil War, 1955-1972 , Mediation, International , Culture conflict Sudan
- Description: This thesis expounds the theoretical underpinnings of problem-solving approach to conflict resolution. It also criticizes the traditional state-centric approach to conflict resolution being followed by the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in the Sudanese civil war. IGAD was initially known as Inter Governmental Authority on Drought and Desertification (IGADD), but was renamed IGAD in 1996. Its objectives were reformulated to give priority to conflict prevention, resolution, and management, and humanitarian affairs. It is stipulated in the thesis that IGAD faces problems that need attention if the Sudanese civil war is to be resolved. A key problem is that while IGAD's objectives were reformulated to give priority to conflict resolution, IGAD's management structure has remained the same. The management structure is state-centric and lacks neutrality, which is a very important ingredient in deep-rooted social conflict resolution. The management structure, which was initially based on combating drought and desertification, was not restructured to conform to the realities of a problem solving approach to conflict resolution. The committee that was formed to look into the Sudanese conflict is composed of states in dispute with Sudan. The other structural problem cited in the thesis is that the IGAD peace process is cumbersome and does not include all aggrieved parties. The meetings involve heads of state, ministers, ambassadors and other government representatives. The peace process is not inclusive of other important players such as other rebel movements. This thesis concludes that: 1. there is a need for peace keeping forces from neutral African Union (AU) member states; 2. conflict resolution specialists are deployed in the region whose main task would be to assist the belligerent groups to reach a common understanding of their problems; 3. the United Nations (UN) acts proactively to create international awareness to the Sudanese problem.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
Using experiential learning to facilitate pharmacy students' understanding of patients' medication practice in chronic illness
- Authors: Williams, Kevin
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Chronic diseases -- Chemotherapy Chronically ill -- Care Pharmacy -- Study and teaching Pharmacy -- Practice Social medicine Health -- Sociological aspects Diseases -- Sociological aspects Health -- Psychological aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1322 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003955
- Description: This study originates from experiences which led me to question the way pharmacists are equipped to advise and support the medicine-taking practice of patients using chronic medication. The study offers a critical theoretical consideration of underlying perspectives informing pharmacy education. I propose following a critical realist ontological perspective, a social realist understanding of social structure and human agency, and a sociocultural epistemology. Based on these perspectives, I consider a sociological critique of ‘health’, ‘disease’, ‘illness’ and ‘sickness’ perspectives on medicine-taking, and of pharmacy as a profession. I then propose an experiential learning approach, with an emphasis on developing reflexivity through affective learning. I follow this with an illustrative case study. Following a critical discourse analysis of student texts from the case study, I conclude that there is evidence that experiential learning may prove useful in developing pharmacy students’ reflexive competency to support the provision of pharmaceutical care to patients using chronic medications.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Williams, Kevin
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Chronic diseases -- Chemotherapy Chronically ill -- Care Pharmacy -- Study and teaching Pharmacy -- Practice Social medicine Health -- Sociological aspects Diseases -- Sociological aspects Health -- Psychological aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1322 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003955
- Description: This study originates from experiences which led me to question the way pharmacists are equipped to advise and support the medicine-taking practice of patients using chronic medication. The study offers a critical theoretical consideration of underlying perspectives informing pharmacy education. I propose following a critical realist ontological perspective, a social realist understanding of social structure and human agency, and a sociocultural epistemology. Based on these perspectives, I consider a sociological critique of ‘health’, ‘disease’, ‘illness’ and ‘sickness’ perspectives on medicine-taking, and of pharmacy as a profession. I then propose an experiential learning approach, with an emphasis on developing reflexivity through affective learning. I follow this with an illustrative case study. Following a critical discourse analysis of student texts from the case study, I conclude that there is evidence that experiential learning may prove useful in developing pharmacy students’ reflexive competency to support the provision of pharmaceutical care to patients using chronic medications.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
An investigation into understanding of academic literacies of students registered in Early Childhood Development courses
- Authors: Hackmack, Karin Erna
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Academic writing -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Grahamstown , Discourse analysis , Information literacy -- Study and teaching (Higher) , Information literacy -- Social aspects , Early childhood education -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa -- Grahamstown , Education -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa -- Grahamstown
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1996 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013548
- Description: Purpose and research questions- This research was based on students enrolled on courses at Rhodes University's Centre for Social Development, an Institute delivering Early Childhood Development courses in the Grahamstown area. Having provided the students with access to a career path and its courses, it was imperative to assist the students to develop a standard of academic literacy comparable to that of in-service education students, in the Intermediate and Senior Phases. This study was influenced by Gee's (2004) definition of literacy as 'mastery over a discourse'. Gee (1990) termed discourse as the socially accepted way of thinking, believing and being. The study therefore investigated the enablers which assisted students to produce academic texts. This was achieved by finding out how the students and the course facilitators construct academic literacy; in other words what their discourses were regarding academic literacy. In order to ascertain this information, the students and the course facilitators were asked what reading and writing the students had done prior to enrolling on the course, what they had brought to the course, what the students and the course facilitators thought comprised a successful academic assignment, and how the students were supported in their academic literacy during the course. Data was gathered through interviews with both students and course facilitators, analysis of course assignments, and assessment reports written by the course facilitators. This data was analysed, looking for discourses on similarities and contradictions. Critical Discourse analysis was used to investigate the discourses that the course facilitators and students were using. Findings: It was evident from the data that the autonomous view of literacy was predominantly used. The course facilitators and, to a limited extent, the students, saw literacy as a set of technical skills that needed to be mastered. The students and course facilitators did not take into account that literacy is a social practice, and that literacy occurs within a particular social context and cultural context. The course facilitators tended to hold a deficit discourse related to the perception of inferior education under Bantu Education, which was seen as an inhibiting factor to academic literacy and academic success. The discourse of second language was also an issue that both the course facilitators and the students noted which prevented students' academic literacy. Christie's (1985) Received Tradition of Literacy, which focused on the forms and functions of literacy, was a discourse that both the students and the course facilitators ascribed to. Conclusions and recommendations: The course facilitators' and students' discourses were very similar, both being embedded within the autonomous and deficit models of literacy. It is recommended that course facilitators become cognisant with the models of academic literacy and that they become aware of the various discourses evident on the course and articulate these discourses for themselves. Furthermore they should assist the students by clearly articulating and unpacking the course requirements regarding academic literary.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Hackmack, Karin Erna
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Academic writing -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Grahamstown , Discourse analysis , Information literacy -- Study and teaching (Higher) , Information literacy -- Social aspects , Early childhood education -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa -- Grahamstown , Education -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa -- Grahamstown
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1996 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013548
- Description: Purpose and research questions- This research was based on students enrolled on courses at Rhodes University's Centre for Social Development, an Institute delivering Early Childhood Development courses in the Grahamstown area. Having provided the students with access to a career path and its courses, it was imperative to assist the students to develop a standard of academic literacy comparable to that of in-service education students, in the Intermediate and Senior Phases. This study was influenced by Gee's (2004) definition of literacy as 'mastery over a discourse'. Gee (1990) termed discourse as the socially accepted way of thinking, believing and being. The study therefore investigated the enablers which assisted students to produce academic texts. This was achieved by finding out how the students and the course facilitators construct academic literacy; in other words what their discourses were regarding academic literacy. In order to ascertain this information, the students and the course facilitators were asked what reading and writing the students had done prior to enrolling on the course, what they had brought to the course, what the students and the course facilitators thought comprised a successful academic assignment, and how the students were supported in their academic literacy during the course. Data was gathered through interviews with both students and course facilitators, analysis of course assignments, and assessment reports written by the course facilitators. This data was analysed, looking for discourses on similarities and contradictions. Critical Discourse analysis was used to investigate the discourses that the course facilitators and students were using. Findings: It was evident from the data that the autonomous view of literacy was predominantly used. The course facilitators and, to a limited extent, the students, saw literacy as a set of technical skills that needed to be mastered. The students and course facilitators did not take into account that literacy is a social practice, and that literacy occurs within a particular social context and cultural context. The course facilitators tended to hold a deficit discourse related to the perception of inferior education under Bantu Education, which was seen as an inhibiting factor to academic literacy and academic success. The discourse of second language was also an issue that both the course facilitators and the students noted which prevented students' academic literacy. Christie's (1985) Received Tradition of Literacy, which focused on the forms and functions of literacy, was a discourse that both the students and the course facilitators ascribed to. Conclusions and recommendations: The course facilitators' and students' discourses were very similar, both being embedded within the autonomous and deficit models of literacy. It is recommended that course facilitators become cognisant with the models of academic literacy and that they become aware of the various discourses evident on the course and articulate these discourses for themselves. Furthermore they should assist the students by clearly articulating and unpacking the course requirements regarding academic literary.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Exploring learners’ engagement with literacy in a book club
- Authors: Jamieson, Vuyokazi
- Date: 2022-04-08
- Subjects: Book clubs (Discussion groups) South Africa Makhanda , Literacy South Africa Makhanda , High school students Books and reading South Africa Makhanda , Books and reading South Africa Makhanda , Reading, Psychology of , Service learning South Africa Makhanda , Critical realism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/263601 , vital:53642
- Description: This study observes the literacy engagement of a group of learners enrolled in Grades 8–10 in Nombulelo High School, a poorly-resourced school in the city of Makhanda in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The learners participated in a book club hosted and run by St Andrew’s College, a privileged independent school, as a community engagement initiative. The idea of extending literacy engagement and engagement with written texts beyond textbooks used in schools is critical for learners with ambitions to enter higher education. Studying at a university requires a lot of reading, and if reading has not been taken up as a practice that involves more than ‘text consulting’ (Geisler, 1994) students will be unlikely to read the number of texts required of them. Studies (see Geisler, 1994 for an overview) have shown how the literacy of the university is very different to school based literacies. The assumption behind the study on which this thesis reports is that engagement with fictional texts might promote reading and bring about understandings of this activity as enjoyable and not a task only associated with schooling. The study is underpinned by a critical realist philosophy which allowed for the identification of structures and mechanisms that led to the emergence of literacy events in learners’ lives and to their experiences and observations of those events. The study was guided by the following questions: How do learners from a poorly-resourced high school engage around fictional texts in the context of a book club? What enables or constrains this engagement? The study was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic in that lockdown requirements meant that learners from St Andrew’s College could not participate in the book club as much as anticipated initially as they had been forced to return home to pursue online learning. Learners from Nombuelo High School were, however, granted access to College premises, where they met in the school library following strict Covid protocols. The study draws on in-depth interviews, observations and document analysis of five learners from Nombulelo High School who participated in the book club, as well as on book reviews they wrote for the book club website. The critical realist analysis allows for the identification of mechanisms in learners’ homes and communities that enable literacies, including those that are screen-based such as using a computer, mobile phones and other technologies. This study found evidence of challenges regarding school based texts, reading fictional texts and viewing it as an enrichment of the school project. Because of children were African the emergence of communal practices and story telling is woven throughout the results section. However, is an example of the complexity of social and economic challenges facing South African marginalised schools. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Centre for Higher Education Research, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-08
- Authors: Jamieson, Vuyokazi
- Date: 2022-04-08
- Subjects: Book clubs (Discussion groups) South Africa Makhanda , Literacy South Africa Makhanda , High school students Books and reading South Africa Makhanda , Books and reading South Africa Makhanda , Reading, Psychology of , Service learning South Africa Makhanda , Critical realism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/263601 , vital:53642
- Description: This study observes the literacy engagement of a group of learners enrolled in Grades 8–10 in Nombulelo High School, a poorly-resourced school in the city of Makhanda in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The learners participated in a book club hosted and run by St Andrew’s College, a privileged independent school, as a community engagement initiative. The idea of extending literacy engagement and engagement with written texts beyond textbooks used in schools is critical for learners with ambitions to enter higher education. Studying at a university requires a lot of reading, and if reading has not been taken up as a practice that involves more than ‘text consulting’ (Geisler, 1994) students will be unlikely to read the number of texts required of them. Studies (see Geisler, 1994 for an overview) have shown how the literacy of the university is very different to school based literacies. The assumption behind the study on which this thesis reports is that engagement with fictional texts might promote reading and bring about understandings of this activity as enjoyable and not a task only associated with schooling. The study is underpinned by a critical realist philosophy which allowed for the identification of structures and mechanisms that led to the emergence of literacy events in learners’ lives and to their experiences and observations of those events. The study was guided by the following questions: How do learners from a poorly-resourced high school engage around fictional texts in the context of a book club? What enables or constrains this engagement? The study was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic in that lockdown requirements meant that learners from St Andrew’s College could not participate in the book club as much as anticipated initially as they had been forced to return home to pursue online learning. Learners from Nombuelo High School were, however, granted access to College premises, where they met in the school library following strict Covid protocols. The study draws on in-depth interviews, observations and document analysis of five learners from Nombulelo High School who participated in the book club, as well as on book reviews they wrote for the book club website. The critical realist analysis allows for the identification of mechanisms in learners’ homes and communities that enable literacies, including those that are screen-based such as using a computer, mobile phones and other technologies. This study found evidence of challenges regarding school based texts, reading fictional texts and viewing it as an enrichment of the school project. Because of children were African the emergence of communal practices and story telling is woven throughout the results section. However, is an example of the complexity of social and economic challenges facing South African marginalised schools. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Centre for Higher Education Research, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-08
A case study of the goals of the business communication course at Technikon Witwatersrand
- Authors: Vongo, Mthuthuzeli Rubin
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Communication in education -- South Africa Communication -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa Curriculum change -- South Africa Competency-based education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1316 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003949
- Description: At Technikon Witwatersrand, Business Communication is offered as a service subject, which is compulsory for a variety of diplomas and the majority of students are obligated to do the course. Its broad intention is to assist students in developing their proficiency in English, enabling them to cope with studying at Technikon and preparing them for the workplace. Despite the fact that the course is designed to assist them, many students question why they have to do the course and whether it is simply a repetition of high school work. The study attempts to examine the implicit and explicit goals of Business Communication, to explore the process through which the goals have been developed and changed over the years (i.e. how the goals have been constructed), and to elicit and compare the perspectives of the different stakeholder groups as to the goals. Both a qualitative and a quantitative approach are used in the research design. Interviews with four fulltime lecturers were conducted and a self-designed questionnaire was administered to students. These were the main means of data collection. The data reveals that the goals of Business Communication are implied rather than explicit. Despite this, students and lecturers see the course as important. Recommendations are made to help the Department of Business Communication to reflect on their practice with particular emphasis given to material development and the application of OBE principles.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Vongo, Mthuthuzeli Rubin
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Communication in education -- South Africa Communication -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa Curriculum change -- South Africa Competency-based education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1316 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003949
- Description: At Technikon Witwatersrand, Business Communication is offered as a service subject, which is compulsory for a variety of diplomas and the majority of students are obligated to do the course. Its broad intention is to assist students in developing their proficiency in English, enabling them to cope with studying at Technikon and preparing them for the workplace. Despite the fact that the course is designed to assist them, many students question why they have to do the course and whether it is simply a repetition of high school work. The study attempts to examine the implicit and explicit goals of Business Communication, to explore the process through which the goals have been developed and changed over the years (i.e. how the goals have been constructed), and to elicit and compare the perspectives of the different stakeholder groups as to the goals. Both a qualitative and a quantitative approach are used in the research design. Interviews with four fulltime lecturers were conducted and a self-designed questionnaire was administered to students. These were the main means of data collection. The data reveals that the goals of Business Communication are implied rather than explicit. Despite this, students and lecturers see the course as important. Recommendations are made to help the Department of Business Communication to reflect on their practice with particular emphasis given to material development and the application of OBE principles.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
A critical analysis of discourses constructing portfolio assessment practices in three Eastern Cape schools
- Authors: Jones, Barbara Ellen
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Discourse analysis -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies Competency-based education -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies Education -- Evaluation -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies Curriculum evaluation -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1468 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003349
- Description: In 1998, South Africa introduced outcomes-based education to affect the shifts in pedagogy considered necessary following the move to democracy in 1994. Across the globe, the use of the portfolio to assess learners is increasingly being promoted as a form of progressive pedagogy. Hence, its adoption by the country as a new form of assessment practice was warranted. However, how the portfolio is constructed and perceived by educators within the classroom can become problematic in practice. This was apparent in the South African context and justifies research into how the portfolio is constructed as an assessment method in educational policy and by educators in the classrooms. The Curriculum Guide Directive text and the transcripts of twenty-one interviews carried out in three Eastern Cape schools served as the source of data for this study. Discourses make up a powerful framework of spoken, written and symbolic texts of institutional bureaucracies. Within these institutions human subjects are defined and constructed. Therefore, discourse construction acts as institutional forms of knowledge which can exude power over the individual if not made transparent. I used critical discourse analysis to uncover the discourses that were embedded within the Curriculum Guide Directive and to identify the discourses entrenched within the educators’ perceptions of the portfolio. The discourses in the Curriculum Guide Directive suggest the construction of the portfolio as a method of surveillance to track whether the educators are preparing learners for the school leaving examination and instructing the educators to provide evidence in the form of a portfolio. Analysis of the transcripts of the twenty one interviews with educators from three schools in the Eastern Cape indicated that the portfolio was not seen as a form of assessment by the educators, but as a form of discipline put in place by the Department of Education to ensure that they are preparing the learners for the school leaving examination and are able to produce proof of this preparation in the form of a portfolio. The discourses from the research highlighted that the school leaving examination is hegemonised into South African educational pedagogy as a form of traditional assessment and is not challenged even when it is no longer bringing about the dominant ideological goals. The portfolio was not seen as an assessment method by the educators nor represented as such in the Curriculum Guide Directive. Therefore, the job of the portfolio became that of a policing tool. Thus, a school curriculum which has been introduced with the intent of furthering social justice can become exclusive in practice, even with the best intentions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Jones, Barbara Ellen
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Discourse analysis -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies Competency-based education -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies Education -- Evaluation -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies Curriculum evaluation -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1468 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003349
- Description: In 1998, South Africa introduced outcomes-based education to affect the shifts in pedagogy considered necessary following the move to democracy in 1994. Across the globe, the use of the portfolio to assess learners is increasingly being promoted as a form of progressive pedagogy. Hence, its adoption by the country as a new form of assessment practice was warranted. However, how the portfolio is constructed and perceived by educators within the classroom can become problematic in practice. This was apparent in the South African context and justifies research into how the portfolio is constructed as an assessment method in educational policy and by educators in the classrooms. The Curriculum Guide Directive text and the transcripts of twenty-one interviews carried out in three Eastern Cape schools served as the source of data for this study. Discourses make up a powerful framework of spoken, written and symbolic texts of institutional bureaucracies. Within these institutions human subjects are defined and constructed. Therefore, discourse construction acts as institutional forms of knowledge which can exude power over the individual if not made transparent. I used critical discourse analysis to uncover the discourses that were embedded within the Curriculum Guide Directive and to identify the discourses entrenched within the educators’ perceptions of the portfolio. The discourses in the Curriculum Guide Directive suggest the construction of the portfolio as a method of surveillance to track whether the educators are preparing learners for the school leaving examination and instructing the educators to provide evidence in the form of a portfolio. Analysis of the transcripts of the twenty one interviews with educators from three schools in the Eastern Cape indicated that the portfolio was not seen as a form of assessment by the educators, but as a form of discipline put in place by the Department of Education to ensure that they are preparing the learners for the school leaving examination and are able to produce proof of this preparation in the form of a portfolio. The discourses from the research highlighted that the school leaving examination is hegemonised into South African educational pedagogy as a form of traditional assessment and is not challenged even when it is no longer bringing about the dominant ideological goals. The portfolio was not seen as an assessment method by the educators nor represented as such in the Curriculum Guide Directive. Therefore, the job of the portfolio became that of a policing tool. Thus, a school curriculum which has been introduced with the intent of furthering social justice can become exclusive in practice, even with the best intentions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
Discourse and the oppression of nonhuman animals: a critical realist account
- Authors: Mitchell, Leslie Roy
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Animal rights Animal welfare -- Moral and ethical aspects Critical realism Critical discourse analysis Animal industry -- Moral and ethical aspects Livestock -- Social aspects Human-animal relationships Agriculture -- Moral and ethical aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1318 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003951
- Description: This work examines the use of nonhuman animals in the farming industry and seeks to understand why this practice takes place and what supports its continuation. The research is approached from a critical realist perspective and after a description of past and current practices in the industry, it uses abduction and retroduction to determine the essential conditions for the continuation of the phenomenon of nonhuman animal farming. One essential condition is found to be the existence of negative discourses relating to nonhuman animals and this aspect is examined in more detail by analyzing a corpus of texts from a farming magazine using Critical Discourse Analysis. Major discourses which were found to be present were those of production, science and slavery which construct the nonhumans respectively as objects of scientific investigation, as production machines and as slaves. A minor discourse of achievement relating to the nonhumans was also present. Further analysis of linguistic features examined the way in which the nonhumans are socially constructed in the discourses. Drawing on work in experimental psychology by Millgram, Zimbardo and Bandura it was found that the effects of these discourses fulfil many of the conditions for bringing about moral disengagement in people thus explaining why billions of people are able to support animal farming in various ways even though what happens in the phenomenon is contrary to their basic ethical and moral beliefs.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Mitchell, Leslie Roy
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Animal rights Animal welfare -- Moral and ethical aspects Critical realism Critical discourse analysis Animal industry -- Moral and ethical aspects Livestock -- Social aspects Human-animal relationships Agriculture -- Moral and ethical aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1318 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003951
- Description: This work examines the use of nonhuman animals in the farming industry and seeks to understand why this practice takes place and what supports its continuation. The research is approached from a critical realist perspective and after a description of past and current practices in the industry, it uses abduction and retroduction to determine the essential conditions for the continuation of the phenomenon of nonhuman animal farming. One essential condition is found to be the existence of negative discourses relating to nonhuman animals and this aspect is examined in more detail by analyzing a corpus of texts from a farming magazine using Critical Discourse Analysis. Major discourses which were found to be present were those of production, science and slavery which construct the nonhumans respectively as objects of scientific investigation, as production machines and as slaves. A minor discourse of achievement relating to the nonhumans was also present. Further analysis of linguistic features examined the way in which the nonhumans are socially constructed in the discourses. Drawing on work in experimental psychology by Millgram, Zimbardo and Bandura it was found that the effects of these discourses fulfil many of the conditions for bringing about moral disengagement in people thus explaining why billions of people are able to support animal farming in various ways even though what happens in the phenomenon is contrary to their basic ethical and moral beliefs.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
An exploration into the conditions enabling and constraining the implementation of quality assurance in higher education: the case of a small comprehensive university in South Africa
- Authors: Masehela, Langutani Meriam
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: University of Venda -- Evaluation , Education, Higher -- South Africa -- Evaluation , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Auditing , Quality assurance -- South Africa , Quality assurance -- Standards -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Evaluation , Educational accountability -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Standards -- South Africa , Educational evaluation -- South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1334 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020312
- Description: At an international level, demands for accountability in respect of the quality of teaching and learning in higher education are increasing. This is also the case in South Africa. The response to these demands has taken the form of the introduction of quality assurance systems to higher education. In South Africa, a formal national external quality assurance was introduced to the higher education system in 2001 as a result of the establishment of the Higher Education Quality Committee. The Higher Education Quality Committee is a standing committee of the South African Council on Higher Education. Like other quality assurance agencies across the world, the Higher Education Quality Committee has the responsibility for i) auditing institutions of higher education and ii) accrediting learning programmes. The first cycle of institutional audits ran from 2004 until 2011. As quality assurance was introduced to the higher education system and the first cycle of institutional audits began, universities in South Africa developed policies and procedures intended to assure quality in three areas of their core functioning: research, teaching and learning and community engagement. The University of Venda, which is the focus of the study on which this thesis is based, was no exception. As a practitioner in the Centre for Higher Education Teaching and Learning at The University of Venda, it was my observation that the policies and procedures intended to assure quality in teaching and learning were not always implemented by academic staff members. This was in spite of poor student performance data which raised questions about the quality of the teaching and learning processes in place. The study underpinning this thesis was designed to explore this phenomenon. More specifically, it aimed to identify the conditions enabling and constraining the implementation of policies and procedures in two Schools in the University: the School of Health Sciences and the School of Human and Social Sciences. In order to explore these conditions, I adopted Roy Bhaskar’s Critical Realism as an under-labouring philosophy for the study. Critical realism posits a view of reality comprising three strata, none of which can be reducible to the other. The first of these strata is termed the level of the Empirical and consists of the experiences and observations which become apparent to us through the senses. The second layer, the Actual, consists of events from which these experiences and observations emerge. Underpinning both of these layers is a further layer, the Real, which is not accessible by empirical means and which consists of structures and mechanisms which generate both events at the level of the Actual and experiences and observation at the level of the Empirical. The design of my study sought to reach this deepest layer of reality to identify these mechanisms. Bhaskar’s critical realism is philosophy which needs to be operationalized using substantive, or explanatory, theory. For this purpose, I drew on Margaret Archer’s social realism. The design on my study drew on case study methodology and involved in-depth interviews with members of the two Schools which each formed cases within the more overarching case of the University itself. In addition to these interviews, I analysed a range of institutional documents related to the assurance of quality in teaching and learning. The exploration of enabling and constraining conditions at the level of the Real allow me to make a series of recommendations in the final Chapter of my thesis intended to enhance the quality assurance system introduced to the University.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Masehela, Langutani Meriam
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: University of Venda -- Evaluation , Education, Higher -- South Africa -- Evaluation , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Auditing , Quality assurance -- South Africa , Quality assurance -- Standards -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Evaluation , Educational accountability -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Standards -- South Africa , Educational evaluation -- South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1334 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020312
- Description: At an international level, demands for accountability in respect of the quality of teaching and learning in higher education are increasing. This is also the case in South Africa. The response to these demands has taken the form of the introduction of quality assurance systems to higher education. In South Africa, a formal national external quality assurance was introduced to the higher education system in 2001 as a result of the establishment of the Higher Education Quality Committee. The Higher Education Quality Committee is a standing committee of the South African Council on Higher Education. Like other quality assurance agencies across the world, the Higher Education Quality Committee has the responsibility for i) auditing institutions of higher education and ii) accrediting learning programmes. The first cycle of institutional audits ran from 2004 until 2011. As quality assurance was introduced to the higher education system and the first cycle of institutional audits began, universities in South Africa developed policies and procedures intended to assure quality in three areas of their core functioning: research, teaching and learning and community engagement. The University of Venda, which is the focus of the study on which this thesis is based, was no exception. As a practitioner in the Centre for Higher Education Teaching and Learning at The University of Venda, it was my observation that the policies and procedures intended to assure quality in teaching and learning were not always implemented by academic staff members. This was in spite of poor student performance data which raised questions about the quality of the teaching and learning processes in place. The study underpinning this thesis was designed to explore this phenomenon. More specifically, it aimed to identify the conditions enabling and constraining the implementation of policies and procedures in two Schools in the University: the School of Health Sciences and the School of Human and Social Sciences. In order to explore these conditions, I adopted Roy Bhaskar’s Critical Realism as an under-labouring philosophy for the study. Critical realism posits a view of reality comprising three strata, none of which can be reducible to the other. The first of these strata is termed the level of the Empirical and consists of the experiences and observations which become apparent to us through the senses. The second layer, the Actual, consists of events from which these experiences and observations emerge. Underpinning both of these layers is a further layer, the Real, which is not accessible by empirical means and which consists of structures and mechanisms which generate both events at the level of the Actual and experiences and observation at the level of the Empirical. The design of my study sought to reach this deepest layer of reality to identify these mechanisms. Bhaskar’s critical realism is philosophy which needs to be operationalized using substantive, or explanatory, theory. For this purpose, I drew on Margaret Archer’s social realism. The design on my study drew on case study methodology and involved in-depth interviews with members of the two Schools which each formed cases within the more overarching case of the University itself. In addition to these interviews, I analysed a range of institutional documents related to the assurance of quality in teaching and learning. The exploration of enabling and constraining conditions at the level of the Real allow me to make a series of recommendations in the final Chapter of my thesis intended to enhance the quality assurance system introduced to the University.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Becoming and being: a critical realist study into the emergence of identity in emergency medical science students, and the construct of graduate attributes
- Authors: Millar, Bernadette Theresa
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Critical realism , Emergency medical personnel -- Psychology , Emergency medical services
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1327 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013175
- Description: This critical realist thesis seeks to understand how student, graduate and professional identities emerge in Emergency Medical Science (EMS) students at a South African University of Technology (UoT) as well as in professional paramedics in the Emergency Medical Care Services (EMCS). It further considers the construct of graduate attributes (GAs) and its relationship to emergence of identity and influence on curriculum design. The research design is that of a case study. The theoretical framework is critical realism whose depth ontology posits three domains of reality. Causal powers and generative mechanisms exist in the Real domain which cause events or phenomena to emerge in the Actual domain that are experienced in the Empirical domain. Using retroduction one may come to explore some of the causes for the event. Using Bhaskar’s concepts of identity, the self, absence and emergence, ontology and four-planar social being, a Bhaskarian explanatory framework of identity to explore the emergence of identity has been created. In exploring graduate attributes, a critical realist question is posed: “What must the world be like for GAs to exist” to explore the possibilities of the existence of GAs. It was found that student identity emerges diachronically in three moments, while professional paramedic identity starts to emerge during the third year of study mainly through the structure, culture and agency of workplace-based learning. In answer to the critical realist question it was found that GAs emerge from the neoliberalist commodification of universities. In seeking an alternative to GAs, traits and attitudes were explored. It was found that these emerge from curriculum, interplay of departmental structure, culture and agency of and from students’ being which makes them ontologically radically different from GAs. This study concludes that student, graduate and professional identities emerge from a person’s core constellational identity diachronically within four-planar social being and the interplay of structure, culture and agency. GAs cannot be related to the emergence of identity and curriculum design because of their ontology; however, if traits and attitudes are substituted for GAs, a close relationship does exist between emergence of identity, traits and attitudes and curriculum design.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Millar, Bernadette Theresa
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Critical realism , Emergency medical personnel -- Psychology , Emergency medical services
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1327 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013175
- Description: This critical realist thesis seeks to understand how student, graduate and professional identities emerge in Emergency Medical Science (EMS) students at a South African University of Technology (UoT) as well as in professional paramedics in the Emergency Medical Care Services (EMCS). It further considers the construct of graduate attributes (GAs) and its relationship to emergence of identity and influence on curriculum design. The research design is that of a case study. The theoretical framework is critical realism whose depth ontology posits three domains of reality. Causal powers and generative mechanisms exist in the Real domain which cause events or phenomena to emerge in the Actual domain that are experienced in the Empirical domain. Using retroduction one may come to explore some of the causes for the event. Using Bhaskar’s concepts of identity, the self, absence and emergence, ontology and four-planar social being, a Bhaskarian explanatory framework of identity to explore the emergence of identity has been created. In exploring graduate attributes, a critical realist question is posed: “What must the world be like for GAs to exist” to explore the possibilities of the existence of GAs. It was found that student identity emerges diachronically in three moments, while professional paramedic identity starts to emerge during the third year of study mainly through the structure, culture and agency of workplace-based learning. In answer to the critical realist question it was found that GAs emerge from the neoliberalist commodification of universities. In seeking an alternative to GAs, traits and attitudes were explored. It was found that these emerge from curriculum, interplay of departmental structure, culture and agency of and from students’ being which makes them ontologically radically different from GAs. This study concludes that student, graduate and professional identities emerge from a person’s core constellational identity diachronically within four-planar social being and the interplay of structure, culture and agency. GAs cannot be related to the emergence of identity and curriculum design because of their ontology; however, if traits and attitudes are substituted for GAs, a close relationship does exist between emergence of identity, traits and attitudes and curriculum design.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Where leaders learn: constructions of leadership and leadership development at Rhodes University
- Authors: Andrews, Rushda Ruth
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Leadership -- Education (Higher) -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Leadership -- Research -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Development leadership -- Education (Higher) -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Rhodes University -- Management
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:782 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003903
- Description: This thesis explores the Where Leaders Learn slogan of Rhodes University. It does this by means of an analysis of discourses constructing leadership and leadership development within the institutional context. The discourse analysis was made possible as a result of interviews with a range of people involved in leadership and leadership development at the University. The analysis revealed that leadership development is constructed as taking place within a highly structured system that enables instructional and managerial leadership but constrains transformational leadership. The discourses that give meaning and understanding to the construct of leadership draw heavily on position within a hierarchy. The discourse of functional efficiency is enabled through practices related to reward, recognition, succession planning and mentorship which all serve to replicate the existing leadership structures creating more of the same and in essence stifling the potential for emancipatory leadership. The analysis also shows that a discourse of collegiality serves to create a false sense of a common understanding of leadership in the light of evidence of uncertainty and contestation around the meaning of the slogan Where Leaders Learn and, by association, the very construct of leadership. The discursive process of understanding leadership and developing an institutional theory for the purposes of infusing this into a curriculum poses many challenges. Barriers to new ways of thinking reside within the researchers' ontological and epistemological commitments. This amplifies the need for a more reflective ontology towards leadership and its consequences, especially so in a multidisciplinary environment such as Rhodes University.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Andrews, Rushda Ruth
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Leadership -- Education (Higher) -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Leadership -- Research -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Development leadership -- Education (Higher) -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Rhodes University -- Management
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:782 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003903
- Description: This thesis explores the Where Leaders Learn slogan of Rhodes University. It does this by means of an analysis of discourses constructing leadership and leadership development within the institutional context. The discourse analysis was made possible as a result of interviews with a range of people involved in leadership and leadership development at the University. The analysis revealed that leadership development is constructed as taking place within a highly structured system that enables instructional and managerial leadership but constrains transformational leadership. The discourses that give meaning and understanding to the construct of leadership draw heavily on position within a hierarchy. The discourse of functional efficiency is enabled through practices related to reward, recognition, succession planning and mentorship which all serve to replicate the existing leadership structures creating more of the same and in essence stifling the potential for emancipatory leadership. The analysis also shows that a discourse of collegiality serves to create a false sense of a common understanding of leadership in the light of evidence of uncertainty and contestation around the meaning of the slogan Where Leaders Learn and, by association, the very construct of leadership. The discursive process of understanding leadership and developing an institutional theory for the purposes of infusing this into a curriculum poses many challenges. Barriers to new ways of thinking reside within the researchers' ontological and epistemological commitments. This amplifies the need for a more reflective ontology towards leadership and its consequences, especially so in a multidisciplinary environment such as Rhodes University.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Epistemological access in a science foundation course: a social realist perspective
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1335 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021309
- Description: This dissertation examines how educational practices of a multidisciplinary, integrated science foundation course, Introduction to Science Concepts and Methods (ISCM), at Rhodes University in South Africa, enable and/or constrain epistemological access to a range of mainstream science disciplines. Students in the ISCM course are mainly African, working-class, first-generation higher education learners whose home language is seldom English. This study is motivated firstly by poor success of working-class African students in higher education in South Africa in general and in the sciences in particular, and secondly by the need for closely theorised, empirical work to guide necessary transformational change that will contribute to equity and, thus, to greater social justice. Since I teach in ISCM and coordinate the programme in which it is located, I also have a personal and professional interest in improving my own practice. Conceptually the study draws on Morrow’s (2007, 2009) and various literacy theorists interpretations of the concept of epistemological access, which in this study is about becoming and being a participant in an academic practice by virtue of learning both the knowledge as well as the norms, values and beliefs that constitute the practice. Theoretically and analytically the study draws on Maton’s (2014a) Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and on various aspects of Bernstein’s (2000) code theory work. Codes are the organising principles or ‘rules of the game’ of practices and code theory is premised on the idea that power and control in education systems manifest themselves through the structural and interactional aspects of educational practices, and therefore have the capacity to include or exclude. Analysing educational practices using code theory enables characterisation of the practices, highlights their underpinning principles, and allows for their effects to be considered. This layered approach to analysis indicates that a critical realist depth ontology serves as an underlabourer to code theory. The desired ‘effect’ of educational practices in this study, is students gaining epistemological access to science, or science disciplines, in higher education. The overall approach is a single, in-depth, qualitative case study with a primary focus on what is legitimated in ISCM educational practices (curriculum, pedagogy, assessment) and how students respond to these practices. A lesser focus is how ex-ISCM students are responding to educational practices in the first-year, first-semester Cell Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences and Physics mainstream courses, and whether they are attaining epistemological access. To examine educational practices in ISCM and mainstream courses data from document analysis, interviews, observations and critical reflections are analysed through developing external languages of description. The two LCT code dimensions of Specialisation (what or who specialises a practice) and Semantics (how meaning relates to context and empirical referents) are used to examine curriculum, Bernstein’s (2000) framing of the regulative and instructional discourses are drawn on in considering pedagogy, and an adapted cognitive process level model assists in analysing assessment practices. To examine student responses to educational practices Bernstein’s (ibid.) concept of acquisition of recognition and realisation rules is used. Since ISCM serves the dual purpose of developing scientific conceptual knowledge, as well as supporting student learning in an academic context, a complex picture of practices and underpinning codes emerges. Based on epistemological concerns of developing students as scientists, ISCM legitimates an epistemic-context knowledge code and a rhizomatic/worldly curriculum code. If students produce the legitimated epistemic-context scientific ‘text’, they have attained epistemic access. Based on axiological concerns of the learning context, ISCM also legitimates a learning-context knower code. By producing the legitimate learning-context ‘text’ of an autonomous, self-regulated science learner, students demonstrate they have attained learning-context access. Both forms of access are key for student success, and combined they constitute epistemological access. The findings of the study indicate that framing and legitimation of educational practices in ISCM, by most accounts, should be promoting epistemological access. When epistemological access is not attained in ISCM it is suggested this is likely due to both a code clash at the learning-context level and competing code demands between epistemic-context and learning-context concerns. Poor access in mainstream courses appears to be exacerbated by both a narrow-based knowledge code and little or no support for a learning-context knower code. The study concludes by outlining a two-tiered conceptual model of epistemological access in the sciences based on the mutually integrative components of epistemic- and learning-context access. Because of inequitable outcomes in science mainstream courses at Rhodes University based on race and/or class I argue for far-reaching transformative pedagogies throughout the faculty, and in the broader South African science higher education sector, that address and accommodate issues of diversity and difference. This should include, amongst other things, a weakening of epistemic relations to create space for a strengthening of learning-context social relations. This is not a suggestion to move away from a science knowledge code, which I argue is based on powerful knowledge to which all students must gain access, but instead a shift in emphasis to better support previously educationally disenfranchised students and to understand in a more rigorous manner what epistemological access means to them as individuals. In light of the recent disruptive and angry student calls for decolonisation of the curriculum, this is an urgent imperative.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1335 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021309
- Description: This dissertation examines how educational practices of a multidisciplinary, integrated science foundation course, Introduction to Science Concepts and Methods (ISCM), at Rhodes University in South Africa, enable and/or constrain epistemological access to a range of mainstream science disciplines. Students in the ISCM course are mainly African, working-class, first-generation higher education learners whose home language is seldom English. This study is motivated firstly by poor success of working-class African students in higher education in South Africa in general and in the sciences in particular, and secondly by the need for closely theorised, empirical work to guide necessary transformational change that will contribute to equity and, thus, to greater social justice. Since I teach in ISCM and coordinate the programme in which it is located, I also have a personal and professional interest in improving my own practice. Conceptually the study draws on Morrow’s (2007, 2009) and various literacy theorists interpretations of the concept of epistemological access, which in this study is about becoming and being a participant in an academic practice by virtue of learning both the knowledge as well as the norms, values and beliefs that constitute the practice. Theoretically and analytically the study draws on Maton’s (2014a) Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and on various aspects of Bernstein’s (2000) code theory work. Codes are the organising principles or ‘rules of the game’ of practices and code theory is premised on the idea that power and control in education systems manifest themselves through the structural and interactional aspects of educational practices, and therefore have the capacity to include or exclude. Analysing educational practices using code theory enables characterisation of the practices, highlights their underpinning principles, and allows for their effects to be considered. This layered approach to analysis indicates that a critical realist depth ontology serves as an underlabourer to code theory. The desired ‘effect’ of educational practices in this study, is students gaining epistemological access to science, or science disciplines, in higher education. The overall approach is a single, in-depth, qualitative case study with a primary focus on what is legitimated in ISCM educational practices (curriculum, pedagogy, assessment) and how students respond to these practices. A lesser focus is how ex-ISCM students are responding to educational practices in the first-year, first-semester Cell Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences and Physics mainstream courses, and whether they are attaining epistemological access. To examine educational practices in ISCM and mainstream courses data from document analysis, interviews, observations and critical reflections are analysed through developing external languages of description. The two LCT code dimensions of Specialisation (what or who specialises a practice) and Semantics (how meaning relates to context and empirical referents) are used to examine curriculum, Bernstein’s (2000) framing of the regulative and instructional discourses are drawn on in considering pedagogy, and an adapted cognitive process level model assists in analysing assessment practices. To examine student responses to educational practices Bernstein’s (ibid.) concept of acquisition of recognition and realisation rules is used. Since ISCM serves the dual purpose of developing scientific conceptual knowledge, as well as supporting student learning in an academic context, a complex picture of practices and underpinning codes emerges. Based on epistemological concerns of developing students as scientists, ISCM legitimates an epistemic-context knowledge code and a rhizomatic/worldly curriculum code. If students produce the legitimated epistemic-context scientific ‘text’, they have attained epistemic access. Based on axiological concerns of the learning context, ISCM also legitimates a learning-context knower code. By producing the legitimate learning-context ‘text’ of an autonomous, self-regulated science learner, students demonstrate they have attained learning-context access. Both forms of access are key for student success, and combined they constitute epistemological access. The findings of the study indicate that framing and legitimation of educational practices in ISCM, by most accounts, should be promoting epistemological access. When epistemological access is not attained in ISCM it is suggested this is likely due to both a code clash at the learning-context level and competing code demands between epistemic-context and learning-context concerns. Poor access in mainstream courses appears to be exacerbated by both a narrow-based knowledge code and little or no support for a learning-context knower code. The study concludes by outlining a two-tiered conceptual model of epistemological access in the sciences based on the mutually integrative components of epistemic- and learning-context access. Because of inequitable outcomes in science mainstream courses at Rhodes University based on race and/or class I argue for far-reaching transformative pedagogies throughout the faculty, and in the broader South African science higher education sector, that address and accommodate issues of diversity and difference. This should include, amongst other things, a weakening of epistemic relations to create space for a strengthening of learning-context social relations. This is not a suggestion to move away from a science knowledge code, which I argue is based on powerful knowledge to which all students must gain access, but instead a shift in emphasis to better support previously educationally disenfranchised students and to understand in a more rigorous manner what epistemological access means to them as individuals. In light of the recent disruptive and angry student calls for decolonisation of the curriculum, this is an urgent imperative.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
An exploration of conditions enabling and constraining the infusion of service-learning into the curriculum at a South African research led university
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda Immaculate
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Rhodes University -- Curricula -- Evaluation Service learning -- Research -- South Africa Education, Higher -- Curricula -- South Africa -- Evaluation Curriculum planning -- Research -- South Africa Experiential learning -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1888 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006036
- Description: Drawing on critical realist philosophy as a meta-theoretical framework, this study explores the conditions that enable and constrain the infusion of service-learning in university curricula. In this study, four discipline-based cases are analysed within the context of an overarching case of one South African university. The study reports on case study research into four disciplines, broadly representing the disciplinary array offered at Rhodes University, a small traditional research-intensive university in South Africa – four cases are thus embedded within a larger over-arching case. Margret Archer’s analytical dualism is used as an analytical lens for the inquiry. It offers tools for examining the conditions for the emergence of service learning and the form it takes in each case. Archer’s framework requires the artificial separation of structural, cultural and agential mechanisms for analytical purposes in order to establish the dominant factors impacting on the infusion of service-learning in curricula. An analysis of the interplay between structure, culture and agency uncovers insights into the conditions that enable or constrain the adoption of service learning as a pedagogic tool in specific disciplines. Curriculum decision-making is a central consideration in this study. Basil Bernstein’s theory of cultural transmission provides an external language of description to theorise the pedagogic choices made in specific contexts. This body of theory provides analytical tools for generating nuanced explanations of the significance of knowledge and curriculum structures as enabling and constraining mechanisms when pedagogic decisions are made. The study shows that the nature of the discipline has a significant influence on the emergence of service-learning and the form it takes in each context. Key agents draw on available structural and cultural mechanisms to either maintain the status quo or they exercise their personal properties and powers to mitigate existing conditions. The first case examines the emergence of service-learning in a ‘hard pure’ discipline where structural and cultural conditions constrain the emergence of innovative pedagogic tools. In this case a key agent draws on a confluence of personal, structural and cultural emergent properties to initiate a service-learning course at the honours level. Factors that make service-learning possible in this case include the key agent’s seniority within the institution, his status as a prolific researcher, the possibilities for application of disciplinary knowledge, and a strong institutional discourse of service to society (RU in Society) and an institutional and departmental discourse privileging academic freedom. In the second case the conditions in the ‘hard applied’ discipline are largely enabling, however the emergence of service-learning is facilitated by the interplay of the following agential, structural and cultural emergent properties: corporate agency taking advantage of the outward focus of the discipline (a region in Bernsteinian terms) and drawing on what is termed the RU in Society discourse. The third case represents a ‘soft pure’ discipline, where service-learning does not emerge within the formal curriculum, but in a largely marginalised departmental outreach programme. This discipline is inward facing and although its knowledge base draws on challenges and phenomena in society, it remains at an esoteric level accessible mainly to the discipline community. Agents in this department draw on the insular structure of the discipline, in conjunction with the strong Academic Freedom discourse to develop a form of service-learning that furthers disciplinary aims, albeit within the context of limited engagement beyond the boundaries of the discipline and the institution. In the case of the ‘soft applied’ discipline the structural and cultural conditions are largely enabling. However the emergence of service-learning in this discipline relies on the advocacy of a powerful social agent in the department with an interest in socially equitable practice; she draws on the RU in Society discourse to promote direct engagement with communities beyond the university boundaries. The study is set in a research-intensive university and it is perhaps not surprising that the service-learning courses in three of the four cases are framed by research projects. This suggests that in the context of this kind of institution it may be imperative to draw on research activities as the basis of infusing service-learning in the curriculum. The findings of this study challenge the implicit assumption in policy documents that it is possible to institute service-learning in all disciplines.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda Immaculate
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Rhodes University -- Curricula -- Evaluation Service learning -- Research -- South Africa Education, Higher -- Curricula -- South Africa -- Evaluation Curriculum planning -- Research -- South Africa Experiential learning -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1888 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006036
- Description: Drawing on critical realist philosophy as a meta-theoretical framework, this study explores the conditions that enable and constrain the infusion of service-learning in university curricula. In this study, four discipline-based cases are analysed within the context of an overarching case of one South African university. The study reports on case study research into four disciplines, broadly representing the disciplinary array offered at Rhodes University, a small traditional research-intensive university in South Africa – four cases are thus embedded within a larger over-arching case. Margret Archer’s analytical dualism is used as an analytical lens for the inquiry. It offers tools for examining the conditions for the emergence of service learning and the form it takes in each case. Archer’s framework requires the artificial separation of structural, cultural and agential mechanisms for analytical purposes in order to establish the dominant factors impacting on the infusion of service-learning in curricula. An analysis of the interplay between structure, culture and agency uncovers insights into the conditions that enable or constrain the adoption of service learning as a pedagogic tool in specific disciplines. Curriculum decision-making is a central consideration in this study. Basil Bernstein’s theory of cultural transmission provides an external language of description to theorise the pedagogic choices made in specific contexts. This body of theory provides analytical tools for generating nuanced explanations of the significance of knowledge and curriculum structures as enabling and constraining mechanisms when pedagogic decisions are made. The study shows that the nature of the discipline has a significant influence on the emergence of service-learning and the form it takes in each context. Key agents draw on available structural and cultural mechanisms to either maintain the status quo or they exercise their personal properties and powers to mitigate existing conditions. The first case examines the emergence of service-learning in a ‘hard pure’ discipline where structural and cultural conditions constrain the emergence of innovative pedagogic tools. In this case a key agent draws on a confluence of personal, structural and cultural emergent properties to initiate a service-learning course at the honours level. Factors that make service-learning possible in this case include the key agent’s seniority within the institution, his status as a prolific researcher, the possibilities for application of disciplinary knowledge, and a strong institutional discourse of service to society (RU in Society) and an institutional and departmental discourse privileging academic freedom. In the second case the conditions in the ‘hard applied’ discipline are largely enabling, however the emergence of service-learning is facilitated by the interplay of the following agential, structural and cultural emergent properties: corporate agency taking advantage of the outward focus of the discipline (a region in Bernsteinian terms) and drawing on what is termed the RU in Society discourse. The third case represents a ‘soft pure’ discipline, where service-learning does not emerge within the formal curriculum, but in a largely marginalised departmental outreach programme. This discipline is inward facing and although its knowledge base draws on challenges and phenomena in society, it remains at an esoteric level accessible mainly to the discipline community. Agents in this department draw on the insular structure of the discipline, in conjunction with the strong Academic Freedom discourse to develop a form of service-learning that furthers disciplinary aims, albeit within the context of limited engagement beyond the boundaries of the discipline and the institution. In the case of the ‘soft applied’ discipline the structural and cultural conditions are largely enabling. However the emergence of service-learning in this discipline relies on the advocacy of a powerful social agent in the department with an interest in socially equitable practice; she draws on the RU in Society discourse to promote direct engagement with communities beyond the university boundaries. The study is set in a research-intensive university and it is perhaps not surprising that the service-learning courses in three of the four cases are framed by research projects. This suggests that in the context of this kind of institution it may be imperative to draw on research activities as the basis of infusing service-learning in the curriculum. The findings of this study challenge the implicit assumption in policy documents that it is possible to institute service-learning in all disciplines.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
A critical investigation into discourses that construct academic literacy at the Durban Institute of Technology
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1317 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004121
- Description: This thesis examines the construction of academic literacy at the Durban Institute of Technology through a discourse analysis of interviews with educators and learners. Academic literacy comprises the norms and values of higher education as manifested in discipline-specific practices. Students are expected to take on these practices, and the underlying epistemologies, without any overt instruction in, or critique of, these ways of being. Lecturer and student discourses are identified and discussed in terms of their impact on the teaching and learning process. This broad context of educator and student understandings is set against the backdrop of the changing educational policies and structures in post-Apartheid South Africa. The changes in approach to academic development are also traced as a setting for the institutional study. The discourses about the intersection between language and learning were found largely to assume that texts, be they lectures, books, assignments etc, are neutral and autonomous of their contexts. Difficulties some learners experience in accessing or producing the expected meaning of these texts were largely ascribed to their problems with language at a surface level rather than to their lack of shared norms regarding the construction of these texts. The study provides an analysis of how the ‘autonomous’ model is manifested iii and illustrates the limitations on curriculum change imposed by this understanding of how texts are constructed and interpreted. Discourses of motivation presume that students’ difficulties in taking on the literacy practices esteemed by the academy are related to attitude. This discourse assumes that learners have a fairly fixed identity, an assumption that did not bear out in the data. The multiple identities of the learners often presented tensions in the acquisition of discipline-specific academic literacies. The learners were found not to invest strongly in an academically literate identity, or were found to experience conflict between this target identity and the identities they brought with them to the institution. The elevation of academic literacy practices is questioned if the surface features, characteristic of these practices, are valued without a concomitant claim to knowledge production. The rapid emergence of a high skills discourse in Universities of Technology in South Africa is also interrogated, given the current emphasis on training for economic growth over discourses of social redress and transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1317 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004121
- Description: This thesis examines the construction of academic literacy at the Durban Institute of Technology through a discourse analysis of interviews with educators and learners. Academic literacy comprises the norms and values of higher education as manifested in discipline-specific practices. Students are expected to take on these practices, and the underlying epistemologies, without any overt instruction in, or critique of, these ways of being. Lecturer and student discourses are identified and discussed in terms of their impact on the teaching and learning process. This broad context of educator and student understandings is set against the backdrop of the changing educational policies and structures in post-Apartheid South Africa. The changes in approach to academic development are also traced as a setting for the institutional study. The discourses about the intersection between language and learning were found largely to assume that texts, be they lectures, books, assignments etc, are neutral and autonomous of their contexts. Difficulties some learners experience in accessing or producing the expected meaning of these texts were largely ascribed to their problems with language at a surface level rather than to their lack of shared norms regarding the construction of these texts. The study provides an analysis of how the ‘autonomous’ model is manifested iii and illustrates the limitations on curriculum change imposed by this understanding of how texts are constructed and interpreted. Discourses of motivation presume that students’ difficulties in taking on the literacy practices esteemed by the academy are related to attitude. This discourse assumes that learners have a fairly fixed identity, an assumption that did not bear out in the data. The multiple identities of the learners often presented tensions in the acquisition of discipline-specific academic literacies. The learners were found not to invest strongly in an academically literate identity, or were found to experience conflict between this target identity and the identities they brought with them to the institution. The elevation of academic literacy practices is questioned if the surface features, characteristic of these practices, are valued without a concomitant claim to knowledge production. The rapid emergence of a high skills discourse in Universities of Technology in South Africa is also interrogated, given the current emphasis on training for economic growth over discourses of social redress and transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
Conditions enabling or constraining the exercise of agency among new academics in higher education, conducive to the social inclusion of students
- Authors: Behari-Leak, Kasturi
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Social integration -- South Africa , Students -- South Africa -- Social conditions , Educational change -- South Africa , College teachers -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism , Agent (Philosophy)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1333 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020295
- Description: This study, which is part of a National Research Foundation project on Social Inclusion in Higher Education (HE), focuses on the exercise of agency among new academics, conducive to the social inclusion of students. Transitioning from varied entry points into higher education, new academics face numerous challenges as they embed themselves in disciplinary and institutional contexts. Given the complexity and contested nature of the current higher education landscape, new academics are especially vulnerable. Using Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism as meta-theoretical framing and Margaret Archer’s social realist theory, with its methodological focus on analytical dualism and morphogenesis, this study offers a social realist account of how new academics engage with enabling and constraining conditions at institutional, faculty, departmental and classroom levels. Through an analysis of six individual narratives of mediation, this study explicates and exemplifies the range of agential choices exercised by new academics to mediate their contested spaces. A nuanced social and critical account of the material, ideational and agential conditions in HE shows that the courses of action taken by these new academics are driven through their concerns, commitments and projects in higher education. Yet, despite the university’s espousal of embracing change, the current induction and transition of new academics is inadequate to the task of transformation in higher education. Systemic conditions in HE, conducive to critical agency and social justice, are not enabling. Bhaskar’s Seven Scalar Being, used as an analytical frame and heuristic, guides the cross-case analysis of the six narratives across seven levels of ontology. The findings highlight that, despite difficult contextual influences, the positive exercise of agency is a marked feature of new participants in HE in this study. This has immediate implications for ways in which professional and academic development, and disciplinary and departmental programmes, could create and sustain conducive conditions for the professionalisation of new academics through more sensitised practices. Using alternative research methods such as photovoice to generate its data, this doctoral study proposes that new research methodologies, located in the third space, are needed now more than ever in HE sociological research, to recognise the researcher and the research participants as independent, autonomous and causally efficacious beings. To this end, this study includes a Chapter Zero, which captures the narrative of the doctoral scholar as researcher, who, shaped and influenced by established doctoral practices and traditions in the field, exercises her own doctoral agency in particular ways.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Behari-Leak, Kasturi
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Social integration -- South Africa , Students -- South Africa -- Social conditions , Educational change -- South Africa , College teachers -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism , Agent (Philosophy)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1333 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020295
- Description: This study, which is part of a National Research Foundation project on Social Inclusion in Higher Education (HE), focuses on the exercise of agency among new academics, conducive to the social inclusion of students. Transitioning from varied entry points into higher education, new academics face numerous challenges as they embed themselves in disciplinary and institutional contexts. Given the complexity and contested nature of the current higher education landscape, new academics are especially vulnerable. Using Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism as meta-theoretical framing and Margaret Archer’s social realist theory, with its methodological focus on analytical dualism and morphogenesis, this study offers a social realist account of how new academics engage with enabling and constraining conditions at institutional, faculty, departmental and classroom levels. Through an analysis of six individual narratives of mediation, this study explicates and exemplifies the range of agential choices exercised by new academics to mediate their contested spaces. A nuanced social and critical account of the material, ideational and agential conditions in HE shows that the courses of action taken by these new academics are driven through their concerns, commitments and projects in higher education. Yet, despite the university’s espousal of embracing change, the current induction and transition of new academics is inadequate to the task of transformation in higher education. Systemic conditions in HE, conducive to critical agency and social justice, are not enabling. Bhaskar’s Seven Scalar Being, used as an analytical frame and heuristic, guides the cross-case analysis of the six narratives across seven levels of ontology. The findings highlight that, despite difficult contextual influences, the positive exercise of agency is a marked feature of new participants in HE in this study. This has immediate implications for ways in which professional and academic development, and disciplinary and departmental programmes, could create and sustain conducive conditions for the professionalisation of new academics through more sensitised practices. Using alternative research methods such as photovoice to generate its data, this doctoral study proposes that new research methodologies, located in the third space, are needed now more than ever in HE sociological research, to recognise the researcher and the research participants as independent, autonomous and causally efficacious beings. To this end, this study includes a Chapter Zero, which captures the narrative of the doctoral scholar as researcher, who, shaped and influenced by established doctoral practices and traditions in the field, exercises her own doctoral agency in particular ways.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Shifting contexts, shifting identities: a realist exploration of transnational mobility, change and identity construction in South African Higher Education expatriates in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
- Authors: Reid, Gillian Janet
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: College teacher mobility , College teacher mobility -- Abū Ẓaby (United Arab Emirates) , College teachers, Foreign -- Abū Ẓaby (United Arab Emirates) , College teachers -- Psychology , Expatriation -- Psychological aspects
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92898 , vital:30760
- Description: Positioned in relation to the globalization of higher education, this realist study is approached from an interest in identity and focuses on nine South African academics professional contexts in South Africa and Abu Dhabi, UAE. As the context of identity formation and emergence is always local, the intention of this research was never to generalize. Rather, in using Bhaskar’s critical realism as its underpinning philosophy, and Archer’s social realism, theories on self, personal and the development and attainment of social identity - her concept of analytical dualism and her morphogenetic framework, this qualitative case study was designed to explore how global and national powers and mechanism effected change in this sub-group of academic’s respective higher education sectors and institutions in post- 1994 South Africa and in Abu Dhabi between 2008 and 2016. The study suggests that participants perceived their academic roles and role-incumbent professional identities to have been negatively impacted by the changes that were implemented in the South African higher education sector as a result the countries reintroduction to the global stage. Their response to become transnational educators in Abu Dhabi’s presented them with conditions that allied their professional experiences of the transformation of South African’s higher education sector. This led to a continued sense of loss of academic agency and powerlessness. This effecting the emergence, through the personal power of reflectivity, combined with discourse and affinity powers and mechanisms, in a social identity that supplanted their academic identities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Reid, Gillian Janet
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: College teacher mobility , College teacher mobility -- Abū Ẓaby (United Arab Emirates) , College teachers, Foreign -- Abū Ẓaby (United Arab Emirates) , College teachers -- Psychology , Expatriation -- Psychological aspects
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92898 , vital:30760
- Description: Positioned in relation to the globalization of higher education, this realist study is approached from an interest in identity and focuses on nine South African academics professional contexts in South Africa and Abu Dhabi, UAE. As the context of identity formation and emergence is always local, the intention of this research was never to generalize. Rather, in using Bhaskar’s critical realism as its underpinning philosophy, and Archer’s social realism, theories on self, personal and the development and attainment of social identity - her concept of analytical dualism and her morphogenetic framework, this qualitative case study was designed to explore how global and national powers and mechanism effected change in this sub-group of academic’s respective higher education sectors and institutions in post- 1994 South Africa and in Abu Dhabi between 2008 and 2016. The study suggests that participants perceived their academic roles and role-incumbent professional identities to have been negatively impacted by the changes that were implemented in the South African higher education sector as a result the countries reintroduction to the global stage. Their response to become transnational educators in Abu Dhabi’s presented them with conditions that allied their professional experiences of the transformation of South African’s higher education sector. This led to a continued sense of loss of academic agency and powerlessness. This effecting the emergence, through the personal power of reflectivity, combined with discourse and affinity powers and mechanisms, in a social identity that supplanted their academic identities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
The value of a Rhodes University degree and securing employment
- Authors: Chambers, Tracy Laura
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Rhodes University -- Graduate students -- Employment Education, Higher -- South Africa Graduate students -- Employment -- South Africa Labor supply -- Effect of education on -- South Africa Economic development -- Effect of education on -- South Africa Labor market -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:769 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003890
- Description: In South Africa, reform policies and frameworks introduced since the 1994 democratic election have sought to bring about change to a highly ineffective and unfair system. In spite of all the changes which have occurred, however, there is evidence to suggest that the system is still not functioning as effectively as it might, given that a relatively large number of graduates remain unemployed in a country with a high skills shortage. This thesis aims to explore the experiences of graduates from one university, Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape, as they enter the job market. It does this through the administration of a first job destination survey administered at the 2009 Graduation Ceremonies held in Grahamstown. Analysis of the survey takes into account the idea that it is not a degree per se, or even a degree from a prestigious university which brings employment, but also the social, cultural and human capital that graduates can bring to their job search.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Chambers, Tracy Laura
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Rhodes University -- Graduate students -- Employment Education, Higher -- South Africa Graduate students -- Employment -- South Africa Labor supply -- Effect of education on -- South Africa Economic development -- Effect of education on -- South Africa Labor market -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:769 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003890
- Description: In South Africa, reform policies and frameworks introduced since the 1994 democratic election have sought to bring about change to a highly ineffective and unfair system. In spite of all the changes which have occurred, however, there is evidence to suggest that the system is still not functioning as effectively as it might, given that a relatively large number of graduates remain unemployed in a country with a high skills shortage. This thesis aims to explore the experiences of graduates from one university, Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape, as they enter the job market. It does this through the administration of a first job destination survey administered at the 2009 Graduation Ceremonies held in Grahamstown. Analysis of the survey takes into account the idea that it is not a degree per se, or even a degree from a prestigious university which brings employment, but also the social, cultural and human capital that graduates can bring to their job search.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
An examination of the drafting-responding process used to develop students' writing in an English Language for Academic Purposes Course
- Authors: Quinn, Lynn
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Foreign speakers , Rhodes University -- Academic Development Programme , Academic writing -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Educational anthropology -- South Africa , Educational sociology -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2359 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002642 , English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Foreign speakers , Rhodes University -- Academic Development Programme , Academic writing -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Educational anthropology -- South Africa , Educational sociology -- South Africa
- Description: Many students when they arrive at university do not possess the “cultural capital” (Bourdieu 1977) which is favoured by the institution. The purpose of the English Language for Academic Purposes (ELAP) course and the drafting-responding process is to help students to begin to acquire the “cultural capital” required to succeed at university. The research reported on in this thesis examined the drafting-responding process as it is used to develop students’ writing in the ELAP course at Rhodes University. The process involved students submitting drafts of their essays on which they received constructive and formative feedback from their ELAP tutor. This feedback was then used to revise their essays before a final version was submitted for assessment. The research took the form of a case study with an essentially interpretive orientation. I examined the drafts (with the tutor’s comments) and final versions of seven students’ ELAP essays. Additional data was obtained by interviewing the students and the tutor. Underpinning my beliefs regarding the role of writing in learning as well as my orientation to research is an understanding of knowledge and learning as being socially constructed. All writing is embedded in and dependent on, not only the immediate social circumstances, but also the broader social and cultural context. In analysing and discussing the data in this research I used Halliday’s (1985) definition of context, in which he draws a broad distinction between the immediate context of situation and the broader context of culture The research findings showed that the drafting-responding process can help students with the process of developing the academic literacy they need in order to write essays within specific situational contexts, in this case, the context of the ELAP course. In addition, at a broader level, it can help students to begin the process of being initiated into the culture of the university as a whole.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
- Authors: Quinn, Lynn
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Foreign speakers , Rhodes University -- Academic Development Programme , Academic writing -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Educational anthropology -- South Africa , Educational sociology -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2359 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002642 , English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Foreign speakers , Rhodes University -- Academic Development Programme , Academic writing -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Educational anthropology -- South Africa , Educational sociology -- South Africa
- Description: Many students when they arrive at university do not possess the “cultural capital” (Bourdieu 1977) which is favoured by the institution. The purpose of the English Language for Academic Purposes (ELAP) course and the drafting-responding process is to help students to begin to acquire the “cultural capital” required to succeed at university. The research reported on in this thesis examined the drafting-responding process as it is used to develop students’ writing in the ELAP course at Rhodes University. The process involved students submitting drafts of their essays on which they received constructive and formative feedback from their ELAP tutor. This feedback was then used to revise their essays before a final version was submitted for assessment. The research took the form of a case study with an essentially interpretive orientation. I examined the drafts (with the tutor’s comments) and final versions of seven students’ ELAP essays. Additional data was obtained by interviewing the students and the tutor. Underpinning my beliefs regarding the role of writing in learning as well as my orientation to research is an understanding of knowledge and learning as being socially constructed. All writing is embedded in and dependent on, not only the immediate social circumstances, but also the broader social and cultural context. In analysing and discussing the data in this research I used Halliday’s (1985) definition of context, in which he draws a broad distinction between the immediate context of situation and the broader context of culture The research findings showed that the drafting-responding process can help students with the process of developing the academic literacy they need in order to write essays within specific situational contexts, in this case, the context of the ELAP course. In addition, at a broader level, it can help students to begin the process of being initiated into the culture of the university as a whole.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000