A research tool for analysing and monitoring the Extent to which Environmental issues are integrated into teachers’ lessons
- Authors: Nsubuga, Yvonne
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386447 , vital:68142 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122246"
- Description: South Africa enjoys strong policy support for the integration of environmental issues into school curricula. However, much doubt exists over the extent to which this has been converted into appropriate classroom practice at the majority of under-resourced rural schools in the country. This article reports on a study which piloted a research tool which can be used to analyse teachers’ lessons, with the aim of gaining insight into the extent to which they integrate natural resource management issues. The research tool was based on Bernstein’s concept of classification and consisted of five indicators of natural resource management integration into Life Sciences lessons. The study contributes to the design of research tools that can be used to analyse and monitor the integration of environmental issues into teachers’ lessons. It also provides some insight into the environmental content of a sample of Grade 10 Life Sciences lessons at four rural underresourced schools in the Eastern Cape.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Nsubuga, Yvonne
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386447 , vital:68142 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122246"
- Description: South Africa enjoys strong policy support for the integration of environmental issues into school curricula. However, much doubt exists over the extent to which this has been converted into appropriate classroom practice at the majority of under-resourced rural schools in the country. This article reports on a study which piloted a research tool which can be used to analyse teachers’ lessons, with the aim of gaining insight into the extent to which they integrate natural resource management issues. The research tool was based on Bernstein’s concept of classification and consisted of five indicators of natural resource management integration into Life Sciences lessons. The study contributes to the design of research tools that can be used to analyse and monitor the integration of environmental issues into teachers’ lessons. It also provides some insight into the environmental content of a sample of Grade 10 Life Sciences lessons at four rural underresourced schools in the Eastern Cape.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Sustainability assessment using a unit-based sustainability assessment tool: The case of three teaching departments at Rhodes University, South Africa
- Authors: Togo, Muchaiteyi
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386863 , vital:68182 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122776"
- Description: A sustainability assessment study was performed with three teaching departments at Rhodes University – Ichthyology and Fisheries Science, Anthropology, and Accounting. The assessment used a Unit-based Sustainability Assessment Tool (USAT) and was guided by systems thinking and the ontological framework provided by critical realism. Results of the study showed that the Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science had a higher integration of sustainability issues in its activities than the other departments sampled, with Accounting having the lowest integration. Interviews conducted with departmental heads and content analyses of documents revealed differences in sustainability issues addressed and in approaches used in tackling them among these departments. The study is intended to inform the Mainstreaming of Environment and Sustainability in African (MESA) Universities Partnership, which promotes mainstreaming environment and sustainability in universities during the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. The study does not provide answers to mainstreaming activities, but opens up space to debate and deliberate how to deal with the mainstreaming of sustainability in universities. It identified some of the challenges to be addressed in university-wide mainstreaming work, and affirmed the need for systems thinking in bringing about change at institutional level to extend changes taking place in individual teaching contexts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Togo, Muchaiteyi
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386863 , vital:68182 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122776"
- Description: A sustainability assessment study was performed with three teaching departments at Rhodes University – Ichthyology and Fisheries Science, Anthropology, and Accounting. The assessment used a Unit-based Sustainability Assessment Tool (USAT) and was guided by systems thinking and the ontological framework provided by critical realism. Results of the study showed that the Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science had a higher integration of sustainability issues in its activities than the other departments sampled, with Accounting having the lowest integration. Interviews conducted with departmental heads and content analyses of documents revealed differences in sustainability issues addressed and in approaches used in tackling them among these departments. The study is intended to inform the Mainstreaming of Environment and Sustainability in African (MESA) Universities Partnership, which promotes mainstreaming environment and sustainability in universities during the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. The study does not provide answers to mainstreaming activities, but opens up space to debate and deliberate how to deal with the mainstreaming of sustainability in universities. It identified some of the challenges to be addressed in university-wide mainstreaming work, and affirmed the need for systems thinking in bringing about change at institutional level to extend changes taking place in individual teaching contexts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Students as Agents of Social Change-Student Initiatives at Rhodes University, South Africa
- Authors: Togo, Muchaiteyi
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386561 , vital:68151 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122830"
- Description: Rhodes University has a diversity of sustainable development initiatives meant for students and in a range of cases activities are initiated by students themselves with the support of the university. Results of a sustainability assessment revealed the involvement of students in environmental societies, environmental awareness campaigns, campus sustainability initiatives and community sustainability projects. Though most of the projects are still in their infancy and some challenges are yet to be overcome, the sustainability initiatives are gaining momentum and have contributed to improving the overall picture of sustainability at the university. Based on the results of the Rhodes University case study, the underpinning viewpoint in this paper is that university students are not merely recipients of Education for Sustainable Development but have the capacity to become agents for social change.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Togo, Muchaiteyi
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386561 , vital:68151 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122830"
- Description: Rhodes University has a diversity of sustainable development initiatives meant for students and in a range of cases activities are initiated by students themselves with the support of the university. Results of a sustainability assessment revealed the involvement of students in environmental societies, environmental awareness campaigns, campus sustainability initiatives and community sustainability projects. Though most of the projects are still in their infancy and some challenges are yet to be overcome, the sustainability initiatives are gaining momentum and have contributed to improving the overall picture of sustainability at the university. Based on the results of the Rhodes University case study, the underpinning viewpoint in this paper is that university students are not merely recipients of Education for Sustainable Development but have the capacity to become agents for social change.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Exploring Learner Participation in Waste-Management Activities in a Rural Botswana Primary School
- Authors: Silo, Nthalivi
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386509 , vital:68148 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122820"
- Description: In Botswana, participation in environmental learning activities has been perceived as a central component of environmental education in formal education. Driven by the need to implement the objective of making the participatory approach part of the infusion of environmental education in the school curriculum as prescribed by the infusion policy, Botswana schools have come up with initiatives to involve learners in environmental education activities that seem to have ‘a direct, perceived benefit to the learners’ (NEESAP, 2007:9). Within this approach it is expected that learners should participate in these activities. However, Ketlhoilwe (2007) revealed that there has been a normalisation of environmental education into existing school culture through equating waste-management activities with environmental education. This generally entails cleaning activities by learners to maintain ‘clean schools’, which is directly associated with environmental education. Drawing from detailed case study data in one rural primary school with Standard 6 learners, I used Cultural Historical Activity Theory to investigate and explain how learners participate in these waste-management activities. Findings from this study revealed that attempts by teachers to meet the policy imperative through prescription of rules, and ascribing roles to learners in waste-management activities, create tensions. This gave rise to an elusive object of learner participation, as the purpose for their participation in these activities is not clear.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Silo, Nthalivi
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386509 , vital:68148 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122820"
- Description: In Botswana, participation in environmental learning activities has been perceived as a central component of environmental education in formal education. Driven by the need to implement the objective of making the participatory approach part of the infusion of environmental education in the school curriculum as prescribed by the infusion policy, Botswana schools have come up with initiatives to involve learners in environmental education activities that seem to have ‘a direct, perceived benefit to the learners’ (NEESAP, 2007:9). Within this approach it is expected that learners should participate in these activities. However, Ketlhoilwe (2007) revealed that there has been a normalisation of environmental education into existing school culture through equating waste-management activities with environmental education. This generally entails cleaning activities by learners to maintain ‘clean schools’, which is directly associated with environmental education. Drawing from detailed case study data in one rural primary school with Standard 6 learners, I used Cultural Historical Activity Theory to investigate and explain how learners participate in these waste-management activities. Findings from this study revealed that attempts by teachers to meet the policy imperative through prescription of rules, and ascribing roles to learners in waste-management activities, create tensions. This gave rise to an elusive object of learner participation, as the purpose for their participation in these activities is not clear.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Joking around in Zimbabwe, undoing and redoing participation
- Authors: Price, Leigh
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/373715 , vital:66716 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122750"
- Description: In Zimbabwe, I teach a participatory course on environmental education to trainers. The course is an adaptation of a course designed by Rhodes University, South Africa. It gives participants a background in educational theories and has a strong theoretical component built around a focus on practice. During the time that the course was being delivered to non-industry participants, the theoretical component of the course was whole-heartedly embraced. We assumed that calling the course ‘participatory’ presupposed the need for this theory because within the theory were the tools for emancipation. And participation, we believed, had an emancipatory mandate. However, when we decided to redevelop the course for industry, we were uncomfortably surprised by the request from a majority of industry participants to reduce the theory and concentrate solely on skills-based training. This paper documents how this discomfort resulted in my adjusting my view of participation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Price, Leigh
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/373715 , vital:66716 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122750"
- Description: In Zimbabwe, I teach a participatory course on environmental education to trainers. The course is an adaptation of a course designed by Rhodes University, South Africa. It gives participants a background in educational theories and has a strong theoretical component built around a focus on practice. During the time that the course was being delivered to non-industry participants, the theoretical component of the course was whole-heartedly embraced. We assumed that calling the course ‘participatory’ presupposed the need for this theory because within the theory were the tools for emancipation. And participation, we believed, had an emancipatory mandate. However, when we decided to redevelop the course for industry, we were uncomfortably surprised by the request from a majority of industry participants to reduce the theory and concentrate solely on skills-based training. This paper documents how this discomfort resulted in my adjusting my view of participation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
Cultural historical activity theory, expansive learning and agency in permaculture workplaces
- Authors: Mukute, Mutizwa
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386474 , vital:68145 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122818"
- Description: This paper reports on how Cultural Historical Activity Theory was used to identify and analyse contradictions; model and implement solutions in the learning and practice of permaculture at one school and its community in Zimbabwe. This is one of three sustainable agriculture workplace learning sites being examined in a wider study on change-oriented learning and sustainability practices (Mukute, 2009). It gives a brief background to permaculture and the School and Colleges Permaculture Programme (SCOPE) in Zimbabwe. The paper focuses on how contradictions were used as sources of learning and development leading to ‘real life expansions’. This demonstrates and reflects on the value of an interventionist research theory and methodology employed in the study to enhance participants’ agency in sustainable agriculture workplaces.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Mukute, Mutizwa
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386474 , vital:68145 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122818"
- Description: This paper reports on how Cultural Historical Activity Theory was used to identify and analyse contradictions; model and implement solutions in the learning and practice of permaculture at one school and its community in Zimbabwe. This is one of three sustainable agriculture workplace learning sites being examined in a wider study on change-oriented learning and sustainability practices (Mukute, 2009). It gives a brief background to permaculture and the School and Colleges Permaculture Programme (SCOPE) in Zimbabwe. The paper focuses on how contradictions were used as sources of learning and development leading to ‘real life expansions’. This demonstrates and reflects on the value of an interventionist research theory and methodology employed in the study to enhance participants’ agency in sustainable agriculture workplaces.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Contextualising Curriculum Design and Recontextualising Its Implementation: The Case of Climate Change Education for Southern African Transfrontier Conservation Area Practitioners
- Mukute, Mutizwa, Pesanayi, Tichaona V
- Authors: Mukute, Mutizwa , Pesanayi, Tichaona V
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387173 , vital:68212 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/121965"
- Description: This paper discusses how the climate change education needs of park managers, ecologists, and community development officers in Southern African Development Community (SADC) Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) were established through contextual profiling. It subsequently analyses how a curriculum that was designed in response to a contextual profiling process was recontextualised during implementation by the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme (REEP), with support from German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation (GIZ). The paper’s purpose is to trace the trajectory of contextualised curriculum development and implementation with a view to identifying how the twin concepts of contextual profiling and recontextualisation were utilised and lessons were learnt. The paper has potential value for educators/trainers interested in increasing the relevance of protected area workplace learning and its congruence to learners’ realities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Mukute, Mutizwa , Pesanayi, Tichaona V
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387173 , vital:68212 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/121965"
- Description: This paper discusses how the climate change education needs of park managers, ecologists, and community development officers in Southern African Development Community (SADC) Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) were established through contextual profiling. It subsequently analyses how a curriculum that was designed in response to a contextual profiling process was recontextualised during implementation by the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme (REEP), with support from German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation (GIZ). The paper’s purpose is to trace the trajectory of contextualised curriculum development and implementation with a view to identifying how the twin concepts of contextual profiling and recontextualisation were utilised and lessons were learnt. The paper has potential value for educators/trainers interested in increasing the relevance of protected area workplace learning and its congruence to learners’ realities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Towards sustainable conversation: Developing environmental education processes
- Authors: Le Roux, Kim
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389884 , vital:68492 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/137446"
- Description: This paper highlights the importance of seeing environmental education as a process and considers the value of conversation and storytelling in environmental education processes. These processes are explored from a post-structural perspective within the context of the writer's own involvement in supporting environmental education processes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
- Authors: Le Roux, Kim
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389884 , vital:68492 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/137446"
- Description: This paper highlights the importance of seeing environmental education as a process and considers the value of conversation and storytelling in environmental education processes. These processes are explored from a post-structural perspective within the context of the writer's own involvement in supporting environmental education processes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
Enhancing Life Sciences Teachers’ Biodiversity Knowledge
- Authors: Tshiningayamwe, Sirkka A N
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387991 , vital:68296 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/152733"
- Description: In the last two decades, South Africa has made efforts to integrate biodiversity content in its Life Sciences curriculum; however its implementation lacks systemic coherence. This is due to ineffective professional development approaches. This paper provides insights into how Life Sciences teachers in the Eastern Cape can be supported through professional learning communities (PLCs) as a potential approach to enhancing their biodiversity knowledge. PLCs are communities that provide the setting and necessary support for groups of classroom teachers to participate collectively in determining their own developmental trajectories, and to set up activities that will drive their development. The case study presented in this paper is part of a broader qualitative PhD study which explored the functionings and conversion factors in biodiversity teacher PLCs in South Africa. Drawing on teachers’ and facilitators’ experiences and the observation of the PLC approaches, the capability approach was used to analyse the functionings and conversion factors that enhance teachers’ biodiversity knowledge. The paper highlights that for PLCs to be effective approaches for professional development, they need to be aligned to teachers’ valued functionings. It also reveals that different conversion factors enable teachers’ achievements of valued functionings in the PLC. The paper aims to contribute to wider policies on capacity building for teachers.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Tshiningayamwe, Sirkka A N
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387991 , vital:68296 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/152733"
- Description: In the last two decades, South Africa has made efforts to integrate biodiversity content in its Life Sciences curriculum; however its implementation lacks systemic coherence. This is due to ineffective professional development approaches. This paper provides insights into how Life Sciences teachers in the Eastern Cape can be supported through professional learning communities (PLCs) as a potential approach to enhancing their biodiversity knowledge. PLCs are communities that provide the setting and necessary support for groups of classroom teachers to participate collectively in determining their own developmental trajectories, and to set up activities that will drive their development. The case study presented in this paper is part of a broader qualitative PhD study which explored the functionings and conversion factors in biodiversity teacher PLCs in South Africa. Drawing on teachers’ and facilitators’ experiences and the observation of the PLC approaches, the capability approach was used to analyse the functionings and conversion factors that enhance teachers’ biodiversity knowledge. The paper highlights that for PLCs to be effective approaches for professional development, they need to be aligned to teachers’ valued functionings. It also reveals that different conversion factors enable teachers’ achievements of valued functionings in the PLC. The paper aims to contribute to wider policies on capacity building for teachers.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
A Bernsteinian analysis of the integration of natural resource management in the curriculum of a rural disadvantaged school
- Authors: Nsubuga, Yvonne
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386415 , vital:68139 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122771"
- Description: Knowledge integration is one of the key principles that underpin curriculum reform in post-apartheid South Africa. One form of teacher support that has been adopted in South Africa is to provide schools throughout the country with samples of pedagogic texts such as curriculum documents and examination exemplars to act as guidelines to teachers as they implement this new curriculum requirement. In the isolated and under-resourced rural schools of South Africa, these texts are the main form of curriculum guidance to teachers. Hence the knowledge integration principles and messages conveyed within these texts are of crucial importance. One contributory factor to the lack of information on knowledge integration at rural underresourced schools is the lack of simple and effective research tools by which to analyse and compare the extent of knowledge integration within pedagogic texts and classroom practices. This article reports on a Bernstein informed analysis that was carried out on three different Grade 10 Life Sciences pedagogic texts in order to assess the extent to which they integrate natural resource management (NRM). The study involved the construction of two indicator frameworks as the research tools with which the analysis was conducted. Results from the analysis showed that although the official Grade 10 Life Sciences pedagogic texts contained very high levels of NRM integration, this was not the case for the Grade 10 Life Sciences text that was produced at the school level. The study provides useful insight into curriculum recontextualisation at a rural under-resourced school through the lens of NRM integration within the Grade 10 Life Sciences pedagogic texts. Such insight has the potential to contribute to better curriculum design and implementation strategies to service schools. This will hopefully help to narrow the gap that currently exists between the official and enacted curricula.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Nsubuga, Yvonne
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386415 , vital:68139 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122771"
- Description: Knowledge integration is one of the key principles that underpin curriculum reform in post-apartheid South Africa. One form of teacher support that has been adopted in South Africa is to provide schools throughout the country with samples of pedagogic texts such as curriculum documents and examination exemplars to act as guidelines to teachers as they implement this new curriculum requirement. In the isolated and under-resourced rural schools of South Africa, these texts are the main form of curriculum guidance to teachers. Hence the knowledge integration principles and messages conveyed within these texts are of crucial importance. One contributory factor to the lack of information on knowledge integration at rural underresourced schools is the lack of simple and effective research tools by which to analyse and compare the extent of knowledge integration within pedagogic texts and classroom practices. This article reports on a Bernstein informed analysis that was carried out on three different Grade 10 Life Sciences pedagogic texts in order to assess the extent to which they integrate natural resource management (NRM). The study involved the construction of two indicator frameworks as the research tools with which the analysis was conducted. Results from the analysis showed that although the official Grade 10 Life Sciences pedagogic texts contained very high levels of NRM integration, this was not the case for the Grade 10 Life Sciences text that was produced at the school level. The study provides useful insight into curriculum recontextualisation at a rural under-resourced school through the lens of NRM integration within the Grade 10 Life Sciences pedagogic texts. Such insight has the potential to contribute to better curriculum design and implementation strategies to service schools. This will hopefully help to narrow the gap that currently exists between the official and enacted curricula.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Heritage–A conceptually evolving and dissonant phenomenon: Implications for heritage management and education practices in post-colonial Southern Africa
- Authors: Zazu, Clayton
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387208 , vital:68215 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122250"
- Description: This conceptual paper is based on experiences and insights which have emerged from my quest to develop a conceptual framework for working with the term ‘heritage’ within an education for sustainable development study that I am currently conducting. Of specific interest to me, and having potential to improve the relevance and quality of heritage education in southern Africa, given the region’s inherent cultural diversity and colonial history, is the need for ‘heritage construct inclusivity’ within the processes constituting heritage education practices. Working around this broad research goal, I therefore needed to be clear about what I mean or refer to as heritage. I realised, however, how elusive and conceptually problematic the term ‘heritage’ is. I therefore, drawing from literature and experiences gained during field observations and focus group interviews, came up with the idea of working with three viewpoints of heritage. Drawing on real life cases I argue that current heritage management and education practices’ failure to recognise and respect the evolving, interconnectedness and multi layered nature of heritage, partly explain the same practices’ lack of relevance and agency to enhance the sustainable management of local heritage resources. I also suggest a few ideas which heritage educators in the context of post-colonial southern Africa may need to consider in their everyday heritage education practices. I also introduce the notion of conceptualising heritage as ‘cultural landscapes’, within which the evolving, dissonant and interconnected nature of heritage, and associated heritage constructs, may be reconciled.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Zazu, Clayton
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387208 , vital:68215 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122250"
- Description: This conceptual paper is based on experiences and insights which have emerged from my quest to develop a conceptual framework for working with the term ‘heritage’ within an education for sustainable development study that I am currently conducting. Of specific interest to me, and having potential to improve the relevance and quality of heritage education in southern Africa, given the region’s inherent cultural diversity and colonial history, is the need for ‘heritage construct inclusivity’ within the processes constituting heritage education practices. Working around this broad research goal, I therefore needed to be clear about what I mean or refer to as heritage. I realised, however, how elusive and conceptually problematic the term ‘heritage’ is. I therefore, drawing from literature and experiences gained during field observations and focus group interviews, came up with the idea of working with three viewpoints of heritage. Drawing on real life cases I argue that current heritage management and education practices’ failure to recognise and respect the evolving, interconnectedness and multi layered nature of heritage, partly explain the same practices’ lack of relevance and agency to enhance the sustainable management of local heritage resources. I also suggest a few ideas which heritage educators in the context of post-colonial southern Africa may need to consider in their everyday heritage education practices. I also introduce the notion of conceptualising heritage as ‘cultural landscapes’, within which the evolving, dissonant and interconnected nature of heritage, and associated heritage constructs, may be reconciled.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Playing musement games: Retroduction in social research, with particular reference to indigenous knowledge in environmental and health education
- Authors: Price, Leigh
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/373763 , vital:66722 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122701"
- Description: My aim here is to introduce the concept of musement (retroduction or abduction) as an appropriate alternative to deduction and induction, both in indigenous knowledge (IK) specifically and in social science generally. As an example, I will use musement to tentatively address some of the ethical problems of using indigenous knowledge (IK) in environmental education and health education. This paper will therefore be of use both to researchers/educators wanting a discussion of retroduction, and researchers/educators wanting a discussion of indigenous knowledge epistemology and its relationship with ethics. I am arguing, from a perspective that allows a stratified reality (things can be real even if not measurable or actually present), that, we admit retroduction into our list of allowable research logics. In terms of IK, the result of accepting retroduction as a valid logic is that we allow IK to be dynamic and non-reified. It also allows a previously ignored aspect of IK, its spiritual/non-empirical beliefs, to be validated through ethical outcomes experienced in our lives, rather than through the previous criteria of empirical validity. In other words, we ask for IK: does believing in (whatever) adequately explain experience and/or provide optimistic, long term, ethical, appropriate ways of living? Thus, retroduction has the potential to allow IK to contribute to a normative ethics.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Price, Leigh
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/373763 , vital:66722 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122701"
- Description: My aim here is to introduce the concept of musement (retroduction or abduction) as an appropriate alternative to deduction and induction, both in indigenous knowledge (IK) specifically and in social science generally. As an example, I will use musement to tentatively address some of the ethical problems of using indigenous knowledge (IK) in environmental education and health education. This paper will therefore be of use both to researchers/educators wanting a discussion of retroduction, and researchers/educators wanting a discussion of indigenous knowledge epistemology and its relationship with ethics. I am arguing, from a perspective that allows a stratified reality (things can be real even if not measurable or actually present), that, we admit retroduction into our list of allowable research logics. In terms of IK, the result of accepting retroduction as a valid logic is that we allow IK to be dynamic and non-reified. It also allows a previously ignored aspect of IK, its spiritual/non-empirical beliefs, to be validated through ethical outcomes experienced in our lives, rather than through the previous criteria of empirical validity. In other words, we ask for IK: does believing in (whatever) adequately explain experience and/or provide optimistic, long term, ethical, appropriate ways of living? Thus, retroduction has the potential to allow IK to contribute to a normative ethics.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
Problematising development in sustainability: Epistemic Justice through an African Ethic
- Authors: Kumalo, Siseko
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/388088 , vital:68305 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/163787"
- Description: This paper critically engages with the concept of development through an analysis of epistemological justice in education for sustainable development (ESD) and presents alternative strategies for adaptation of the concept in the South. Many definitional challenges still surround development studies. The paper draws on the work of Wolfgang Sachs (1999) who asserts that the notion of sustainability has been consumed by development, presenting a view of sustainability which challenges the current and dominant economically driven hegemonic development discourse in which sustainability has become embedded. Further useful perspectives for this paper are offered by Amartya Sen (2001) who refers to development as a form of freedom. Sachs (1999) maintains that global definitions of development cement the dominant hegemonic discourse of the leading North, which has resulted in an obfuscation of the epistemological contribution from the South. The paper argues that, in the integration of congruent and enabling conceptual frameworks, allowing epistemic justice and validating the lived experience of learners through socially responsive pedagogical frameworks, South Africa is beginning to respond to the global environmental crisis. At the core of the paper is the question of whether an African ethical position advances the attainment of sustainability objectives. The paper concludes by positing a shift in scholastic and social understandings of development, and redefining the term from a changing terrain which may seem immutable with the current environmental crisis.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Kumalo, Siseko
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/388088 , vital:68305 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/163787"
- Description: This paper critically engages with the concept of development through an analysis of epistemological justice in education for sustainable development (ESD) and presents alternative strategies for adaptation of the concept in the South. Many definitional challenges still surround development studies. The paper draws on the work of Wolfgang Sachs (1999) who asserts that the notion of sustainability has been consumed by development, presenting a view of sustainability which challenges the current and dominant economically driven hegemonic development discourse in which sustainability has become embedded. Further useful perspectives for this paper are offered by Amartya Sen (2001) who refers to development as a form of freedom. Sachs (1999) maintains that global definitions of development cement the dominant hegemonic discourse of the leading North, which has resulted in an obfuscation of the epistemological contribution from the South. The paper argues that, in the integration of congruent and enabling conceptual frameworks, allowing epistemic justice and validating the lived experience of learners through socially responsive pedagogical frameworks, South Africa is beginning to respond to the global environmental crisis. At the core of the paper is the question of whether an African ethical position advances the attainment of sustainability objectives. The paper concludes by positing a shift in scholastic and social understandings of development, and redefining the term from a changing terrain which may seem immutable with the current environmental crisis.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Editorial
- Authors: Rosenberg, Eureta
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389759 , vital:68481 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/216901"
- Description: This issue of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education coincides with the start of the 26th United Nations Conference on Climate Change. COP26 in Glasgow is, like its predecessors, a Conference of Parties who will deliberate how to lower global greenhouse emissions and build adaptive capacity so as to reduce the risk and impacts of climate change.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
- Authors: Rosenberg, Eureta
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389759 , vital:68481 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/216901"
- Description: This issue of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education coincides with the start of the 26th United Nations Conference on Climate Change. COP26 in Glasgow is, like its predecessors, a Conference of Parties who will deliberate how to lower global greenhouse emissions and build adaptive capacity so as to reduce the risk and impacts of climate change.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
Social learning processes and nature-culture relations of commercial beekeeping practices as small and medium enterprise development in Zimbabwe
- Authors: Masara, Christopher
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386545 , vital:68150 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122860"
- Description: This paper explores social learning processes and nature-culture relations in a context of transition from traditional to commercial beekeeping in Zimbabwe. The contours of social learning provided by Wals (2007) are used to probe the learning processes in the social interactions shaping an emerging community of commercial beekeepers and their small and medium enterprise development practices. The paper illustrates how the practice of engaging communities in participatory expansive learning research could benefit from more refined tools for understanding the open-ended contours of social learning interactions in relation to nature-culture relations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Masara, Christopher
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386545 , vital:68150 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122860"
- Description: This paper explores social learning processes and nature-culture relations in a context of transition from traditional to commercial beekeeping in Zimbabwe. The contours of social learning provided by Wals (2007) are used to probe the learning processes in the social interactions shaping an emerging community of commercial beekeepers and their small and medium enterprise development practices. The paper illustrates how the practice of engaging communities in participatory expansive learning research could benefit from more refined tools for understanding the open-ended contours of social learning interactions in relation to nature-culture relations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
The Influence of Adaptive Co-management Interrelations on the Social Learning, Change and Transformation of the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi Community in Tanzania
- Authors: Ferdinand, Victoria
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387311 , vital:68224 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/137668"
- Description: This study sought to identify signs of social learning, change and transformation resulting from adaptive co-management interrelations in terms of the project ‘Reduction of Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation’ (REDD) at the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi Forest Reserves (PKFR) community in Tanzania. The study therefore presents some enablers and constraints in respect of learning, agency formation, social change and transformation potentially influenced by the REDD. This is a qualitative case study that explored ‘learning’1 from living experiences of local people at the PKFR and from local mechanisms of the REDD project. Reflexive workshop interventions were used to validate the performance of local REDD practices against the adaptive co-management framework. Other data was obtained through interviews, focus-group discussion, the analysis of documents and direct observations. The study found that individual people may deepen their understanding of forestry issues through collaborative interrelations. Social learning in the PKFR community was potentially stimulated by people’s relational interactions, reflective thinking and anticipations, and questioning of past practices. Learning occurred subtly, and the learning process was not endured firmly enough to foster the complex learning dynamics necessary for transformational changes. As a result, most of the REDD-stimulated learning did not transform the practices desired in the project.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Ferdinand, Victoria
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387311 , vital:68224 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/137668"
- Description: This study sought to identify signs of social learning, change and transformation resulting from adaptive co-management interrelations in terms of the project ‘Reduction of Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation’ (REDD) at the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi Forest Reserves (PKFR) community in Tanzania. The study therefore presents some enablers and constraints in respect of learning, agency formation, social change and transformation potentially influenced by the REDD. This is a qualitative case study that explored ‘learning’1 from living experiences of local people at the PKFR and from local mechanisms of the REDD project. Reflexive workshop interventions were used to validate the performance of local REDD practices against the adaptive co-management framework. Other data was obtained through interviews, focus-group discussion, the analysis of documents and direct observations. The study found that individual people may deepen their understanding of forestry issues through collaborative interrelations. Social learning in the PKFR community was potentially stimulated by people’s relational interactions, reflective thinking and anticipations, and questioning of past practices. Learning occurred subtly, and the learning process was not endured firmly enough to foster the complex learning dynamics necessary for transformational changes. As a result, most of the REDD-stimulated learning did not transform the practices desired in the project.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Think Piece, Naked Science-Avoiding Methodolatry in an Environmental Education Context
- Authors: Price, Leigh
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387264 , vital:68220 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122255"
- Description: Research methodology is significantly political and in this think piece I try to better understand the effect of this politicisation in the production of science. The main focus of the think piece is to identify the dominant methodological discourses and analyse them using techniques borrowed from post-structuralism. From this analysis, I suggest that methodological discourses are reproduced and normalised in much the same way as discourses of, for example, sexuality, and I give examples of this from my experience as a PhD student of environmental education. I also suggest that some transgressive methodologies, such as those associated with postmodernism or participatory research, despite purporting to empower, at times also disempower. Furthermore, all of the methodologies that I analyse are, in one way or another, ‘loaded’; they cloak their agendas. From this analysis, I move towards suggesting an alternative critical realist methodology for environmental education which is naked; its agendas are clearly stated, not least because this epistemology does not lend itself to deception. An important part of this critical realist conception of methodology is the idea of ‘meta-reflexivity’ in which truth is not vulgarly pragmatic or fideistic.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Price, Leigh
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387264 , vital:68220 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122255"
- Description: Research methodology is significantly political and in this think piece I try to better understand the effect of this politicisation in the production of science. The main focus of the think piece is to identify the dominant methodological discourses and analyse them using techniques borrowed from post-structuralism. From this analysis, I suggest that methodological discourses are reproduced and normalised in much the same way as discourses of, for example, sexuality, and I give examples of this from my experience as a PhD student of environmental education. I also suggest that some transgressive methodologies, such as those associated with postmodernism or participatory research, despite purporting to empower, at times also disempower. Furthermore, all of the methodologies that I analyse are, in one way or another, ‘loaded’; they cloak their agendas. From this analysis, I move towards suggesting an alternative critical realist methodology for environmental education which is naked; its agendas are clearly stated, not least because this epistemology does not lend itself to deception. An important part of this critical realist conception of methodology is the idea of ‘meta-reflexivity’ in which truth is not vulgarly pragmatic or fideistic.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Actor/actant-network theory as emerging methodology for environmental education research in southern Africa
- Authors: Nhamo, Godwell
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/373553 , vital:66701 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122722"
- Description: This paper deliberates on actor/actant-network theory (AANT) as methodology for policy research in environmental education (EE). Insights are drawn from work that applied AANT to research environmental policy processes surrounding the formulation and implementation of South Africa’s Plastic Bags Regulations of 2003. The paper reveals that the application of AANT methodology made it possible to trace relationships, actors, actants and actor/actant-networks surrounding the Plastic Bags Regulations as quasi-object (token). The methodology also enabled a focus on understanding and investigating tensions, debates and responses emerging from the policy process. The findings were that after the promulgation of the first draft of the Plastic Bags Regulations in May 2000, tensions emerged around the nature of regulation (whether to use the command and control approach – preferred by Organised Government – or self regulation – preferred by Organised Business and Organised Labour). From these findings, a series of conceptual frameworks were drawn up as identified around key actors and actor/actant-networks. The conceptual frameworks included among them, Organised Government, Organised Business and Organised Labour.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Nhamo, Godwell
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/373553 , vital:66701 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122722"
- Description: This paper deliberates on actor/actant-network theory (AANT) as methodology for policy research in environmental education (EE). Insights are drawn from work that applied AANT to research environmental policy processes surrounding the formulation and implementation of South Africa’s Plastic Bags Regulations of 2003. The paper reveals that the application of AANT methodology made it possible to trace relationships, actors, actants and actor/actant-networks surrounding the Plastic Bags Regulations as quasi-object (token). The methodology also enabled a focus on understanding and investigating tensions, debates and responses emerging from the policy process. The findings were that after the promulgation of the first draft of the Plastic Bags Regulations in May 2000, tensions emerged around the nature of regulation (whether to use the command and control approach – preferred by Organised Government – or self regulation – preferred by Organised Business and Organised Labour). From these findings, a series of conceptual frameworks were drawn up as identified around key actors and actor/actant-networks. The conceptual frameworks included among them, Organised Government, Organised Business and Organised Labour.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2006
Underlying mechanisms affecting institutionalisation of environmental education courses in Southern Africa
- Authors: Lupele, Justin
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386926 , vital:68188 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122773"
- Description: This paper discusses the underlying causal mechanisms that enabled or constrained institutionalisation of environmental education in 12 institutions in eight countries in southern Africa. The study was carried out in the context of the Southern Africa Development Community Regional Environmental Education Support Programme’s Course Development Network (CDN). This paper reports on part of the author's doctoral study and draws on critical realism as the ontological lens. Data analysis was done by means of a retroductive mode of inference, as articulated by Danermark, Ekström, Jakosben and Karlsson (2002). The paper demonstrates that there are a number of underlying causal mechanisms, which may enable or constrain institutionalisation of environmental education. They include factors at play at both national and institutional level; namely, responsiveness to national and institutional needs, recognition and ownership, accreditation and certification, institutional culture and politics, short course support structure and support from colleagues. As part of the discussions of the results of the study, I have advanced some retroductive theories that suggest causal mechanisms beyond the empirical data based on the participants’ experiences and events in the CDN.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Lupele, Justin
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386926 , vital:68188 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122773"
- Description: This paper discusses the underlying causal mechanisms that enabled or constrained institutionalisation of environmental education in 12 institutions in eight countries in southern Africa. The study was carried out in the context of the Southern Africa Development Community Regional Environmental Education Support Programme’s Course Development Network (CDN). This paper reports on part of the author's doctoral study and draws on critical realism as the ontological lens. Data analysis was done by means of a retroductive mode of inference, as articulated by Danermark, Ekström, Jakosben and Karlsson (2002). The paper demonstrates that there are a number of underlying causal mechanisms, which may enable or constrain institutionalisation of environmental education. They include factors at play at both national and institutional level; namely, responsiveness to national and institutional needs, recognition and ownership, accreditation and certification, institutional culture and politics, short course support structure and support from colleagues. As part of the discussions of the results of the study, I have advanced some retroductive theories that suggest causal mechanisms beyond the empirical data based on the participants’ experiences and events in the CDN.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Understanding social learning processes in a citrus farming community of practice
- Authors: Downsborough, Linda
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386949 , vital:68191 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122819"
- Description: This paper focuses on what would traditionally be termed ‘non-formal’ learning processes in the context of a case study examining how citrus farming communities in the Patensie Valley in the Eastern Cape in South Africa were learning conservation practices. Communities of Practice theory was used to provide a conceptual framework for researching these learning interactions. Through historical and other qualitative research methods, I was able to establish that farmers in this community of practice learned mainly through responding to change and uncertainty, through forming and drawing on networks and community structures, through intergenerational learning, and through various interactions with each other. The historical research also pointed to the significance of policy and market-based changes in farmer learning, and their attachment to the land, which is shaped through historical associations with the land, and through embedded relations in farming practice cultures. The paper provides an example of how Communities of Practice theory, complemented by historical research, can be used to understand non-formal learning.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Downsborough, Linda
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386949 , vital:68191 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122819"
- Description: This paper focuses on what would traditionally be termed ‘non-formal’ learning processes in the context of a case study examining how citrus farming communities in the Patensie Valley in the Eastern Cape in South Africa were learning conservation practices. Communities of Practice theory was used to provide a conceptual framework for researching these learning interactions. Through historical and other qualitative research methods, I was able to establish that farmers in this community of practice learned mainly through responding to change and uncertainty, through forming and drawing on networks and community structures, through intergenerational learning, and through various interactions with each other. The historical research also pointed to the significance of policy and market-based changes in farmer learning, and their attachment to the land, which is shaped through historical associations with the land, and through embedded relations in farming practice cultures. The paper provides an example of how Communities of Practice theory, complemented by historical research, can be used to understand non-formal learning.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009