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Research for policy and practice in teacher education: The case of the Professional Practice Schools research project
Get PDFThis article starts from an acknowledgement of the complexity of connecting research, policy, and practice in teacher education. Using the framework of a practice architecture, the article explores how researchers, policy-makers and teacher educators experienced a particular research project aimed at exploring the conditions for the establishment of Professional Practice schools in South Africa. The discussion highlights the importance of seeing policy work as action-oriented inquiry, where the experiences of those directly involved in a policy are taken into central consideration. Enabling and constraining factors in supporting positive interconnections in this case study are outlined. The article ends by offering a hopeful view on conditions of possibility for further engagement between different sectors in the research-policy-practice nexus
Art education: a case of mistaken identity?
Get PDFThis paper begins by identifying two fundamental problems in contemporary British andAmerican secondary art curriculum: epistemological confusion and the absence of anyaesthetic component. This paper proposes a reformulation of art as an aesthetic culturalaccomplishment drawing on Kant’s theory of the aesthetic and symbolic representation asdiscussed by Cassirer and Langer. This is followed by a comparative epistemologicalanalysis of art with Social Realist models of scientific knowledge. A case is made for art asa unique form of knowledge, possessing both a subjective aesthetic basis and an objectivebasis in its expressive form. The final section of this paper discusses the implications of theproposed conceptualisation of art for the art curriculum, and proposes a model for arteducation in schools that has the potential to solve the problems identified at the beginning
Analysis and monitoring of equitable access and full participation in education in South Africa: the challenge of data quality
Get PDFIndicators to measure educational access serve the useful purpose of facilitating theevaluation and analysis of progress made towards achieving stated educational accessobjectives. In South Africa, data from the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) and Net EnrolmentRatio (NER) are commonly used to report on progress made towards universal educationalaccess. The critique in the use of these data is threefold; first, that they are computed frominaccurate school data and second, that their conceptual basis stems from a structuralapproach to educational access that gives primacy to the onset or final phases of theschooling process (primary or secondary) rather than also to what not only happens duringschool but also in classrooms. Subsumed and arising from the first two, the third critiquerelates to the nature of indicators used to measure educational access. Put differently,conceptualisations premised on a structural approach have not only had consequences forthe source of data and indicators used to measure educational access but also for its analysisand interpretation.Established therefore, is that conceptions of educational access not onlyinfluence the choice of indicators that are regarded to be effective and suitable to describeeducational access (Fataar, 1997; Lewin, 2007; Hill, Baxen, Craig and Namakula, 2012) butthey also impact the nature of data generated for this purpose.Through a review of conceptualisations of educational access and through the use of datadrawn from a study of two Eastern Cape secondary schools, this paper argues that a shift indiscourses on education access is necessary for this country to fully understand and respondto the discontinuities that persist to characterise the education system. It calls for a shiftfrom a structural discourse to one that intersects equity and full participation concerns. Thepaper highlights how such a shift in conceptualisation not only has implications for thenature of data gathered but importantly for indicators produced and applied to describe andmeasure educational access
Knowledge and knowers by Karl Maton A review essay
Get PDFThis article outlines selected aspects of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), as presented inMaton’s book Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a realist sociology of education (2014),and considers their usefulness to the field of education research, in particular, for languageeducation. An introduction to key LCT concepts is provided highlighting their analyticpower for the investigation of the varying forms of educational knowledge structures,knower roles and what forms of pedagogic practices promote or inhibit cumulative learning.The notion of ‘context’, in relation to LCTs concept of semantic gravity anddecontextualised knowledge forms, is considered alongside Cummins’ notions ofcontextualised and decontextualised language. The importance of further research into whatis meant by ‘context’ in relation to pinpointing the nature of contextualised anddecontextualised knowledge, and the nature of forms of cumulative learning is raise
Towards an e-learning ecologies approach to pedagogy in a post-COVID world
Get PDFThis article responds to themes in this special Covid-19 edition of the Journal of Education. It specifically concentrates on online digital technology as one of the core dimensions of education's pandemic-related response. As the default mode of teaching during the pandemic, Online Emergency Remote Teaching evoked contentious responses about the future directions of education in a post-Covid world. The article is an attempt to shed light on the role of digital technology in education. We present an argument that supports an ‘e-learning ecologies’ approach to pedagogy to inform teaching and learning in institutional context. We argue that a reflexive pedagogy-led response to digital technology holds promise for creating a productive educational platform to promote students’ critical epistemic engagement to secure viable futures.
Keywords:
Post-Covid pandemic, digital technology, e-learning ecologies, reflexive pedagogy, design-based learning
 
Teaching in and beyond pandemic times (2021)
Get PDFBook review: edited by Jonathan D Jansen and Theola Farmer-Phillip
Intersecting Health, Housing, and Urban Inclusion in the Time of COVID-19
No full text“Housing is a key site through which COVID-19 is experienced” (Rogers and Power, 2020: 177). This paper explores how COVID-19 has illuminated the intersection between health and housing, in the context of equity and inclusive cities. This paper reviews the theoretical pathways that link housing as an important determinant of health, and applies them to the COVID-19 situation. For example, stay-at-home orders are impossible for homeless individuals; social distancing is difficult in overcrowded housing; lockdowns in poor quality homes can result in health challenges; and pandemic-induced unemployment increases risk of eviction and poor health outcomes. Importantly, the pandemic has sharpened the visibility of existing inequitable structures that shape the social and built environment and place vulnerable populations at heightened risk. Anecdotal evidence from Detroit, Michigan, USA and Durban, South Africa allows for preliminary exploration of these intersections. The paper concludes with recommendations for cities to improve equity and inclusivity.  
Epistemological access in Marketing – a demonstration of the use of Legitimation Code Theory in Higher Education
Get PDFHaving epistemological access to an academic discipline means that one is able toparticipate effectively in its ‘Discourse’. However, understanding what such participationentails and putting this into practice is complicated as much about it is tacit and contested.This article argues that a more explicit understanding of what legitimate participation in adisciplinary Discourse involves is facilitated by using an analytical toolkit provided byLegitimation Code Theory (LCT) to bring to the surface the discipline’s underlyingprinciples and ‘rules of the game’. To support this argument and demonstrate the efficacy ofthis toolkit, the article foregrounds one discipline (Marketing) at the University ofKwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Using the LCT analytical tools to explore the ‘languages oflegitimation’ in interview data, documents and the discipline’s scholarly literature, insight isgained into what constitutes legitimate participation and achievement in Marketin
An enquiry into the effects of my early learning experiences on my current teaching practice
Get PDFAs a South African educator, I am haunted, positively or negatively, by my own earlylearning experiences during Apartheid. In this article, I explore my early learningexperiences and my current teaching practice through a reflective journey. Firstly, I considerthe need to be reflective as a teacher. Then I weave a narrative of personal learningexperiences through my early school days and current teaching practice, using the schoolcontext, pedagogy, socialisation and discipline as categories of investigation. Lastly, Icritically contrast my past learning experiences with my current teaching practice. Inexploring my past experiences and reflecting critically on my current teaching pedagogy, Ihave come to see how I was able to dispel anguish and become an optimistic teacher. Inorder to realise the change we desire, we as teachers have to embrace change and that canhappen.Memory is the weapon!
