A transdisciplinary explanatory critique of environmental education
- Authors: Price, Leigh
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Environmental education Business enterprises -- Environmental aspects Corporations -- Environmental aspects Social responsibility of business Social responsibility of business -- Study and teaching Environmental education -- Philosophy Environmental ethics -- Study and teaching
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1804 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003689
- Description: This study originates out of my experience as an environmental educator working within business and industry in Zimbabwe and South Africa. It is motivated by my observation that, despite much environmental rhetoric and training, environmental education in industry rarely leads to significant advances towards environmental protection. I assume that the problem of the mismatch between rhetoric and action involves both semiotic and non-semiotic components and therefore, after a thorough exploration of my methodological options, I adopt a qualitative transdisciplinary textual analysis of relevant documents using Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis and Bhaskar’s Dialectical Critical Realism, with some insights taken from Bhaskar’s more recent concept of Meta-Reality. My main conclusions from the study indicate that causally efficacious philosophical mistakes, relating to theories of structure/agency and theories of epistemology, are an important aspect of the problem being considered. Specifically, I demonstrate that these mistakes function to buttress ideology and its attendant contradictions which in turn function to provide the preconditions that maintain inequalities and poor environmental practice in business and industry. Prior and current events, such as climate change and the trend towards globalisation, the ‘free market economy’ and psychological characteristics of the author, relevant to the problem, are also important. In line with Bhaskar’s emancipatory aim for explanatory critique, I end with tentative recommendations for a re-imagined environmental education for business and industry which require (un)action. Consistent with my methodological choices, my recommendations have a (qualified) universal application, despite my focus on texts from South Africa and Zimbabwe. My recommendations are summarised below: • there should be consistency between theory and practice such that performance contradictions are avoided; • we should not act from a fear of survival based on past, no longer relevant experiences (e.g. from childhood) as this is unlikely to be an adequate base for present actions; • we should avoid voluntarism by acting with the resources at our disposal, based on a true understanding of our strengths and weaknesses and our own specificities; • we should avoid assuming the stance of the ‘victim’ by refusing to blame other agents or circumstances, without distorting or underestimating the causal efficacy of those agents or circumstances (related to avoiding voluntarism, whilst nevertheless not resorting to determinism either); • we should direct our action towards the abolition of inequalities and master-slave relationships (related to the avoidance of performance contradictions); • we should act from the position of epistemological humility, rather than from the position of epistemological privilege; • we should consider action as ‘shedding’ based on an understanding of the Transformational Model of Social Activity (TMSA); and • we should consider learning to be ‘shedding’ based on the necessity of (un)knowledge, or ignorance, as a requirement of arriving at relatively new knowledge. This study is also a contribution to contemporary methodological discussions relevant to Critical Discourse Analysis in that it extends these discussions to include psychoanalytical (as well as the more familiar phenomenological and ideological) depth explanations of lived illusion. Furthermore, this study is an experimental attempt to apply the concept of ‘meta-reflexivity’ in Critical Discourse Analysis.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Price, Leigh
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Environmental education Business enterprises -- Environmental aspects Corporations -- Environmental aspects Social responsibility of business Social responsibility of business -- Study and teaching Environmental education -- Philosophy Environmental ethics -- Study and teaching
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1804 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003689
- Description: This study originates out of my experience as an environmental educator working within business and industry in Zimbabwe and South Africa. It is motivated by my observation that, despite much environmental rhetoric and training, environmental education in industry rarely leads to significant advances towards environmental protection. I assume that the problem of the mismatch between rhetoric and action involves both semiotic and non-semiotic components and therefore, after a thorough exploration of my methodological options, I adopt a qualitative transdisciplinary textual analysis of relevant documents using Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis and Bhaskar’s Dialectical Critical Realism, with some insights taken from Bhaskar’s more recent concept of Meta-Reality. My main conclusions from the study indicate that causally efficacious philosophical mistakes, relating to theories of structure/agency and theories of epistemology, are an important aspect of the problem being considered. Specifically, I demonstrate that these mistakes function to buttress ideology and its attendant contradictions which in turn function to provide the preconditions that maintain inequalities and poor environmental practice in business and industry. Prior and current events, such as climate change and the trend towards globalisation, the ‘free market economy’ and psychological characteristics of the author, relevant to the problem, are also important. In line with Bhaskar’s emancipatory aim for explanatory critique, I end with tentative recommendations for a re-imagined environmental education for business and industry which require (un)action. Consistent with my methodological choices, my recommendations have a (qualified) universal application, despite my focus on texts from South Africa and Zimbabwe. My recommendations are summarised below: • there should be consistency between theory and practice such that performance contradictions are avoided; • we should not act from a fear of survival based on past, no longer relevant experiences (e.g. from childhood) as this is unlikely to be an adequate base for present actions; • we should avoid voluntarism by acting with the resources at our disposal, based on a true understanding of our strengths and weaknesses and our own specificities; • we should avoid assuming the stance of the ‘victim’ by refusing to blame other agents or circumstances, without distorting or underestimating the causal efficacy of those agents or circumstances (related to avoiding voluntarism, whilst nevertheless not resorting to determinism either); • we should direct our action towards the abolition of inequalities and master-slave relationships (related to the avoidance of performance contradictions); • we should act from the position of epistemological humility, rather than from the position of epistemological privilege; • we should consider action as ‘shedding’ based on an understanding of the Transformational Model of Social Activity (TMSA); and • we should consider learning to be ‘shedding’ based on the necessity of (un)knowledge, or ignorance, as a requirement of arriving at relatively new knowledge. This study is also a contribution to contemporary methodological discussions relevant to Critical Discourse Analysis in that it extends these discussions to include psychoanalytical (as well as the more familiar phenomenological and ideological) depth explanations of lived illusion. Furthermore, this study is an experimental attempt to apply the concept of ‘meta-reflexivity’ in Critical Discourse Analysis.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
A phenomenological study of women primary school heads' experiences as educational leaders in post colonial Zimbabwe
- Authors: Muzvidziwa, Irene
- Date: 2013-06-26
- Subjects: Educational leadership -- Zimbabwe Women school administrators -- Zimbabwe School management and organization -- Zimbabwe Women in education -- Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1949 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008200
- Description: This research study was carried out in order to gain an understanding of the experiences of women primary school heads, their perceptions of their roles as leaders, the challenges they face and how they dealt with them. The study focused on the lived experiences of five women in Zimbabwe's primary schools. Literature relating to the issues and experiences of women in educational leadership within school contexts and the conceptual framework is examined. The importance of leadership has been emphasised in the literature of school effectiveness. Leadership theories tended to emphasise measurability and effectiveness of leadership, oversimplifying the complexity of leadership phenomenon. These features reflect research approach adopted by researchers from a positivist orientation. This study is an in-depth qualitative study conducted along the lines suggested by a phenomenological-interpretivist design with emphasis on rich contextual detail, close attention to individual's lived experience and the bracketing of pre-conceived notions of the phenomenon. Views and experiences based on the participants' perspectives are described through in-depth interviews which were dialogical in nature. Through this approach, I managed to grasp the essences of the lived experiences of women The research highlights the women's perceptions of themselves as educational leaders. What emerges is the variety of approaches to handling challenges. My findings show a rich and diverse culture of creativity in the way participants adopted a problem-solving strategy, which is not reflected in the mainstream leadership. Though educational leadership emerges as a complex phenomenon, with alternative approaches to educational research, there is high potential for increased understanding of woman's leadership, its importance and implications for school. , KMBT_363 , Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in
- Full Text:
- Authors: Muzvidziwa, Irene
- Date: 2013-06-26
- Subjects: Educational leadership -- Zimbabwe Women school administrators -- Zimbabwe School management and organization -- Zimbabwe Women in education -- Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1949 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008200
- Description: This research study was carried out in order to gain an understanding of the experiences of women primary school heads, their perceptions of their roles as leaders, the challenges they face and how they dealt with them. The study focused on the lived experiences of five women in Zimbabwe's primary schools. Literature relating to the issues and experiences of women in educational leadership within school contexts and the conceptual framework is examined. The importance of leadership has been emphasised in the literature of school effectiveness. Leadership theories tended to emphasise measurability and effectiveness of leadership, oversimplifying the complexity of leadership phenomenon. These features reflect research approach adopted by researchers from a positivist orientation. This study is an in-depth qualitative study conducted along the lines suggested by a phenomenological-interpretivist design with emphasis on rich contextual detail, close attention to individual's lived experience and the bracketing of pre-conceived notions of the phenomenon. Views and experiences based on the participants' perspectives are described through in-depth interviews which were dialogical in nature. Through this approach, I managed to grasp the essences of the lived experiences of women The research highlights the women's perceptions of themselves as educational leaders. What emerges is the variety of approaches to handling challenges. My findings show a rich and diverse culture of creativity in the way participants adopted a problem-solving strategy, which is not reflected in the mainstream leadership. Though educational leadership emerges as a complex phenomenon, with alternative approaches to educational research, there is high potential for increased understanding of woman's leadership, its importance and implications for school. , KMBT_363 , Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in
- Full Text:
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
Hermeneutic and empirical analyses of graphically inspired metamathematics that reflect critical consciousness within perspectives of personal and social justice
- Authors: Van Jaarsveld, Pieter Paul
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Mathematics -- Study and teaching -- South Africa Mathematics -- Study and teaching -- Social aspects -- South Africa Algorithms -- Study and teaching -- South Africa Critical pedagogy Metacognition Hermeneutics
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1842 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004376
- Description: My involvement with mathematics education amongst township educators and learners over the past seven years has highlighted the absence of sustained meaning and meaning making of mathematical concepts. It appears though that this instrumental rather than relational understanding of FET mathematics is not unique to township learners but is encountered amongst learners of all socio-economic classes and is representative of many FET mathematics learners. Given that the language of learning and teaching is a major contributory factor in the South African education system, it appears that the language of mathematics itself is a greater exacerbating factor for many learners of mathematics. The exclusive algorithmic approach to classroom mathematics further seems to alienate many learners from the essence of the meaning of mathematical tasks. This research undertakes to determine whether metateaching and metalearning as forerunners to metacognition facilitates the acquisition of the sustained meaning of mathematical concepts. Metateaching and metalearning refer to the acute and deliberate awareness by educator and learner as to what constitutes concepts. Teaching and learning therefore presupposes the deconstruction of concepts into its subsumed derivative roots. It also assumes an awareness of the tacit degrees of abstraction that characterise tasks and the content of tasks. This in turn has implications for the educator's adopted sequence of topics for instruction. Metacognition implies awareness on the part of the learner (and educator) as to how material is learned and a further awareness as to how that learning can be sustained. Whether we ascribe meaningful learning to radical or social constructivism, or to associationist didactive approaches, or a combination of these, we are making assumptions about how learners acquire and sustain mathematical meaning because mathematics is, by and large a symbolic language often devoid of affective connotation. Furthermore our assessments of learners' tasks amount to clinical corrections of austere formulae wrapped in algorithmic procedures which manifest nothing of a learner's experience of mathematics or the deeper understanding (or misunderstandings) which characterise a learning and/or assessment episode. To this end the research design of this interpretive case study requires learners to expound in textual accounts their thoughts as they describe the evolution of a mathematical process as they approach a solution and eventually interpret it. The textual account exposes the concept definition for what it really is in a learner's understanding of it and it is the expressiveness of language that indicates whether the understanding of a learner is approaching the concept image. The textual accounts vary in richness in terms of mathematical register and this in turn reflects the conceptual depth. The mechanism which seems to promote the conversion from concept definition to concept image is the graphical representation of the mathematical task or procedure, possibly because of its greater concreteness as opposed to the abstraction of its algebraic form.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Van Jaarsveld, Pieter Paul
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Mathematics -- Study and teaching -- South Africa Mathematics -- Study and teaching -- Social aspects -- South Africa Algorithms -- Study and teaching -- South Africa Critical pedagogy Metacognition Hermeneutics
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1842 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004376
- Description: My involvement with mathematics education amongst township educators and learners over the past seven years has highlighted the absence of sustained meaning and meaning making of mathematical concepts. It appears though that this instrumental rather than relational understanding of FET mathematics is not unique to township learners but is encountered amongst learners of all socio-economic classes and is representative of many FET mathematics learners. Given that the language of learning and teaching is a major contributory factor in the South African education system, it appears that the language of mathematics itself is a greater exacerbating factor for many learners of mathematics. The exclusive algorithmic approach to classroom mathematics further seems to alienate many learners from the essence of the meaning of mathematical tasks. This research undertakes to determine whether metateaching and metalearning as forerunners to metacognition facilitates the acquisition of the sustained meaning of mathematical concepts. Metateaching and metalearning refer to the acute and deliberate awareness by educator and learner as to what constitutes concepts. Teaching and learning therefore presupposes the deconstruction of concepts into its subsumed derivative roots. It also assumes an awareness of the tacit degrees of abstraction that characterise tasks and the content of tasks. This in turn has implications for the educator's adopted sequence of topics for instruction. Metacognition implies awareness on the part of the learner (and educator) as to how material is learned and a further awareness as to how that learning can be sustained. Whether we ascribe meaningful learning to radical or social constructivism, or to associationist didactive approaches, or a combination of these, we are making assumptions about how learners acquire and sustain mathematical meaning because mathematics is, by and large a symbolic language often devoid of affective connotation. Furthermore our assessments of learners' tasks amount to clinical corrections of austere formulae wrapped in algorithmic procedures which manifest nothing of a learner's experience of mathematics or the deeper understanding (or misunderstandings) which characterise a learning and/or assessment episode. To this end the research design of this interpretive case study requires learners to expound in textual accounts their thoughts as they describe the evolution of a mathematical process as they approach a solution and eventually interpret it. The textual account exposes the concept definition for what it really is in a learner's understanding of it and it is the expressiveness of language that indicates whether the understanding of a learner is approaching the concept image. The textual accounts vary in richness in terms of mathematical register and this in turn reflects the conceptual depth. The mechanism which seems to promote the conversion from concept definition to concept image is the graphical representation of the mathematical task or procedure, possibly because of its greater concreteness as opposed to the abstraction of its algebraic form.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Genesis of environmental education policy in Botswana: construction and interpretation
- Ketlhoilwe, Mphemelang Joseph
- Authors: Ketlhoilwe, Mphemelang Joseph
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Botswana Education and state -- Botswana
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1549 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003431
- Description: This study is based on the 1994 Revised National Policy on Education (Botswana Government, 1994) that introduced environmental education into the Botswana’s education system. The main goals of this study were to understand the genealogy of and to critically analyze governmentality associated with environmental education policy in Botswana. Drawing on a post-structural genealogical approach to the subject matter (following Foucault) global historical events and their influence on policy in Botswana, views on environmental education and interpretation, and power relations in environmental education policy discourses were investigated. An investigation was conducted through document analysis, interviews, focus group discussions and observations. The analysis revealed that power relations have historically transcended environmental education policy discourses from global, regional to national levels. The exercise of power through international bodies, and bilateral and multilateral agreements has impacted on Botswana enabling her to enact policies to address socio-ecological crises or regulating them to sustainably utilize natural resources. However, evidence has shown that although Botswana accepted and introduced environmental education, structures were not ready for its implementation and hence some contextual problems are experienced by teachers in schools. The Revised National Policy on Education (RNPE) was constructed through a consultative process, but the final decision on what goes into the policy text was decided from the top (i.e. by the Ministry of Education senior officials). It emerged from this study that Botswana has inconsistently adopted sustainability and conservation-protection discourses in environmental education policy. The mix of the two discourses shows continuity of the protectionist-conservationist discourses and emergence of the current sustainable use discourse, creating a complex discourse environment. The study also revealed that in including these primarily western scientific discourses, other discourses were marginalized or excluded, which revealed continuity with colonial education discourses. The findings also revealed variance in the understanding of environmental education. The majority of the teachers understood and normalised new knowledge in environmental education as Environmental Science or Science, and equated environmental management activities with environmental education. Teachers deployed new governmentalities and normalizing strategies by following the traditional conservation and science epistemological and pedagogical discourses. They exercised various self-governing strategies to respond to the RNPE requirement regarding environmental education. The findings highlight the need for re-conceptualization of environmental education at macro(at Ministry of Education) and micro level. There is a need to harmonize the variation in policy interpretations and clarification of the conservation/environmental education and sustainability discourses running parallel in schools or to work more explicitly with multiple discourses. It has also emerged that teacher support mechanisms need review to enhance policy implementation. The study recommends that further and explicit analysis of environmental education discourses is critical for shaping the future of environmental education policy development and interpretation within Botswana’s education system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Ketlhoilwe, Mphemelang Joseph
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Botswana Education and state -- Botswana
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1549 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003431
- Description: This study is based on the 1994 Revised National Policy on Education (Botswana Government, 1994) that introduced environmental education into the Botswana’s education system. The main goals of this study were to understand the genealogy of and to critically analyze governmentality associated with environmental education policy in Botswana. Drawing on a post-structural genealogical approach to the subject matter (following Foucault) global historical events and their influence on policy in Botswana, views on environmental education and interpretation, and power relations in environmental education policy discourses were investigated. An investigation was conducted through document analysis, interviews, focus group discussions and observations. The analysis revealed that power relations have historically transcended environmental education policy discourses from global, regional to national levels. The exercise of power through international bodies, and bilateral and multilateral agreements has impacted on Botswana enabling her to enact policies to address socio-ecological crises or regulating them to sustainably utilize natural resources. However, evidence has shown that although Botswana accepted and introduced environmental education, structures were not ready for its implementation and hence some contextual problems are experienced by teachers in schools. The Revised National Policy on Education (RNPE) was constructed through a consultative process, but the final decision on what goes into the policy text was decided from the top (i.e. by the Ministry of Education senior officials). It emerged from this study that Botswana has inconsistently adopted sustainability and conservation-protection discourses in environmental education policy. The mix of the two discourses shows continuity of the protectionist-conservationist discourses and emergence of the current sustainable use discourse, creating a complex discourse environment. The study also revealed that in including these primarily western scientific discourses, other discourses were marginalized or excluded, which revealed continuity with colonial education discourses. The findings also revealed variance in the understanding of environmental education. The majority of the teachers understood and normalised new knowledge in environmental education as Environmental Science or Science, and equated environmental management activities with environmental education. Teachers deployed new governmentalities and normalizing strategies by following the traditional conservation and science epistemological and pedagogical discourses. They exercised various self-governing strategies to respond to the RNPE requirement regarding environmental education. The findings highlight the need for re-conceptualization of environmental education at macro(at Ministry of Education) and micro level. There is a need to harmonize the variation in policy interpretations and clarification of the conservation/environmental education and sustainability discourses running parallel in schools or to work more explicitly with multiple discourses. It has also emerged that teacher support mechanisms need review to enhance policy implementation. The study recommends that further and explicit analysis of environmental education discourses is critical for shaping the future of environmental education policy development and interpretation within Botswana’s education system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
An investigation of the key mechanisms that promote whole school development in a secondary school pilot project context
- Authors: Westraad, Susan Fiona
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Education -- South Africa Education, Secondary -- South Africa Education and state -- South Africa School improvement programs -- South Africa Educational change -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1414 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003291
- Description: Providing relevant and quality schooling for all South African learners is the paramount goal of the South African National Department of Education. South Africa 's historical and current socio-economic contexts provide many challenges for both the Department of Education and schools in this endeavour to provide quality teaching and learning. These challenges impact directly and indirectly on what happens in the classroom. Since 1994 a plethora of education and training policy has been introduced in South Africa to redress historical imbalances; to introduce a new education and training framework and approach; and to provide guidelines, principles and procedures for addressing some of the challenges that impact on schools. The National Whole School Evaluation Policy provides the legislative framework for the establishment of a quality assurance process in South African schools based on accountability and support. The subsequent Integrated Quality Management System attempts to provide a framework for integrating school evaluation and performance measurement. Policy frameworks are in place to guide quality assurance and school improvement, however, the reality of implementing this at a grass roots level is particularly challenging. The General Motors (GM) South Africa Foundation, a non-governmental development organisation, established by General Motors (GM) South Africa, commenced with the piloting the Learning Schools Initiative to investigate some of the challenges of whole school development and evaluation. This research documents the Learning Schools Initiative's intervention with the initial two pilot secondary schools situated in Port Elizabeth (Nelson Mandela Bay) over a four-year period. It reviews the relevant school reform and school development literature and adopts a critical realist evaluative research approach to investigate the key mechanisms that promote whole school development and change in this context. In keeping with this approach, the results of the research are analysed and discussed within a context-menchanism-outcome configuration that involves the identification of the key mechanisms that bring about desired outcome/s in a specific context. Seven key generative mechanisms are identified as critical at a school and classroom level (i) school culture, (ii) school structures, (iii) effective leadership and management, (iv) personal growth and meaning, (v) restoration of relationships, (vi) professional development of educators, and development of capacity to work together, and (vii) support and accountability. The need to structure school development interventions around the triggering of identified key mechanisms is also identified as an important overarching mechanism. Suggestions are made for further research required to facilitate a deeper understanding of how to bring about meaningful change that results in quality teaching and learning in South African schools.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Westraad, Susan Fiona
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Education -- South Africa Education, Secondary -- South Africa Education and state -- South Africa School improvement programs -- South Africa Educational change -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1414 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003291
- Description: Providing relevant and quality schooling for all South African learners is the paramount goal of the South African National Department of Education. South Africa 's historical and current socio-economic contexts provide many challenges for both the Department of Education and schools in this endeavour to provide quality teaching and learning. These challenges impact directly and indirectly on what happens in the classroom. Since 1994 a plethora of education and training policy has been introduced in South Africa to redress historical imbalances; to introduce a new education and training framework and approach; and to provide guidelines, principles and procedures for addressing some of the challenges that impact on schools. The National Whole School Evaluation Policy provides the legislative framework for the establishment of a quality assurance process in South African schools based on accountability and support. The subsequent Integrated Quality Management System attempts to provide a framework for integrating school evaluation and performance measurement. Policy frameworks are in place to guide quality assurance and school improvement, however, the reality of implementing this at a grass roots level is particularly challenging. The General Motors (GM) South Africa Foundation, a non-governmental development organisation, established by General Motors (GM) South Africa, commenced with the piloting the Learning Schools Initiative to investigate some of the challenges of whole school development and evaluation. This research documents the Learning Schools Initiative's intervention with the initial two pilot secondary schools situated in Port Elizabeth (Nelson Mandela Bay) over a four-year period. It reviews the relevant school reform and school development literature and adopts a critical realist evaluative research approach to investigate the key mechanisms that promote whole school development and change in this context. In keeping with this approach, the results of the research are analysed and discussed within a context-menchanism-outcome configuration that involves the identification of the key mechanisms that bring about desired outcome/s in a specific context. Seven key generative mechanisms are identified as critical at a school and classroom level (i) school culture, (ii) school structures, (iii) effective leadership and management, (iv) personal growth and meaning, (v) restoration of relationships, (vi) professional development of educators, and development of capacity to work together, and (vii) support and accountability. The need to structure school development interventions around the triggering of identified key mechanisms is also identified as an important overarching mechanism. Suggestions are made for further research required to facilitate a deeper understanding of how to bring about meaningful change that results in quality teaching and learning in South African schools.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Networking: enabling professional development and institutionalisation of environmental education courses in Southern Africa
- Authors: Lupele, Justin Kalaba
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme Education -- Africa, Southern Environmental education -- Africa, Southern Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1678 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003561
- Description: This study was aimed at understanding how networking can enable or constrain professional development and institutionalisation of environmental education courses in southern Africa in the context of the Course Development Network (CDN), a project of the Southern Africa Development Community Regional Environmental Education Programme (SADC REEP). The study involved 12 institutions (each institution was represented in the CDN by a staff member) in eight SADC member states. It was contextualized through a review of social, political, environmental and educational developments in southern Africa, with specific reference to regionalization processes, as the SADC REEF is constituted under this post-colonial political framework. Relational philosophy informed the research process and methodology. The philosophy underpinned three distinct, yet related theoretical perspectives namely: critical realism, which provided the ontological perspectives of the study; Actor Network Theory; and Community of Practice, which provided the epistemological perspectives. Data was generated during a 33-month period in southern Africa and 12 months in the United Kingdom (and on a one week visit to Italy). During a 12 month Split Site Commonwealth Scholarship award, tenable at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, I studied the Environment and School Initiative (ENSI) and the Sustainability Education for European Primary Schools (SEEPS), to examine whether the same mechanisms that made them successful would apply to the CDN in the context of southern Africa. While these two case studies provided useful insight into the relationship between networking, professional development and institutionalization of environmental education programmes, they were not the main focus of the research. Data analysis was mainly through inductive, abductive and retroductive modes of inference. Inductive data analysis was done by means of Nvivo – a computer software package used for qualitative data analysis. The software aided in revealing features and relationships in the data in more depth as it allowed flexibility in working with data. Abduction is the interpretation of a phenomenon by means of a conceptual framework. In this study, I used Actor Network Theory (ANT) (Latour & Woolgar, 1979; Callon, 1986) and Community of Practice (COP) (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Fullan, 2003) as analytical conceptual frameworks to probe networking and professional development respectively. Data on institutionalisation of environmental education courses was analysed by means of retroductive mode of inference, which is a thought operation that enables the understanding of social reality beyond what is empirically observable or experienced. This study reveals that there were a number of necessary (internal) and contingent (external) factors that enabled or constrained networking, professional development and institutionalisation of environmental education courses in the context of the CDN. The key factors included existing cultural capital, donor political economy, power relations, poverty related factors and social transformation trends. The study found that relational approaches and the use of three relational theoretical lenses provided a broader lens which enabled this study to identify different dynamics, greater ontological depth and understanding of the relational dynamics and relations at play in the CDN beyond the participants' experience and observable events. The study also contends that networking can provide a support structure for social transformation and change in environmental education.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Lupele, Justin Kalaba
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme Education -- Africa, Southern Environmental education -- Africa, Southern Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1678 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003561
- Description: This study was aimed at understanding how networking can enable or constrain professional development and institutionalisation of environmental education courses in southern Africa in the context of the Course Development Network (CDN), a project of the Southern Africa Development Community Regional Environmental Education Programme (SADC REEP). The study involved 12 institutions (each institution was represented in the CDN by a staff member) in eight SADC member states. It was contextualized through a review of social, political, environmental and educational developments in southern Africa, with specific reference to regionalization processes, as the SADC REEF is constituted under this post-colonial political framework. Relational philosophy informed the research process and methodology. The philosophy underpinned three distinct, yet related theoretical perspectives namely: critical realism, which provided the ontological perspectives of the study; Actor Network Theory; and Community of Practice, which provided the epistemological perspectives. Data was generated during a 33-month period in southern Africa and 12 months in the United Kingdom (and on a one week visit to Italy). During a 12 month Split Site Commonwealth Scholarship award, tenable at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, I studied the Environment and School Initiative (ENSI) and the Sustainability Education for European Primary Schools (SEEPS), to examine whether the same mechanisms that made them successful would apply to the CDN in the context of southern Africa. While these two case studies provided useful insight into the relationship between networking, professional development and institutionalization of environmental education programmes, they were not the main focus of the research. Data analysis was mainly through inductive, abductive and retroductive modes of inference. Inductive data analysis was done by means of Nvivo – a computer software package used for qualitative data analysis. The software aided in revealing features and relationships in the data in more depth as it allowed flexibility in working with data. Abduction is the interpretation of a phenomenon by means of a conceptual framework. In this study, I used Actor Network Theory (ANT) (Latour & Woolgar, 1979; Callon, 1986) and Community of Practice (COP) (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Fullan, 2003) as analytical conceptual frameworks to probe networking and professional development respectively. Data on institutionalisation of environmental education courses was analysed by means of retroductive mode of inference, which is a thought operation that enables the understanding of social reality beyond what is empirically observable or experienced. This study reveals that there were a number of necessary (internal) and contingent (external) factors that enabled or constrained networking, professional development and institutionalisation of environmental education courses in the context of the CDN. The key factors included existing cultural capital, donor political economy, power relations, poverty related factors and social transformation trends. The study found that relational approaches and the use of three relational theoretical lenses provided a broader lens which enabled this study to identify different dynamics, greater ontological depth and understanding of the relational dynamics and relations at play in the CDN beyond the participants' experience and observable events. The study also contends that networking can provide a support structure for social transformation and change in environmental education.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
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