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Experiencing education as misrecognised “Coloured” women in South Africa
Full text linkMuch has been written about the oppression suffered by marginalised groups in South Africa. From the literature, we can gain some sense of what it means to be relegated to racial boxes. We can also theorise about the harms of racism and their lasting effects on individuals and society. However, what does it mean for the individual to carry a label when they neither understand it nor want it? How do individuals internalise the prescribed assignments of racial identities? Through this article, we take you into the lives of six women labelled as ‘coloured’. We share stories of their determination to excel from when they were at school in apartheid to higher education post-apartheid. While poignant and brave, their stories expose the rawness of being seen as a colour before being seen as a human. In making sense of their stories, we turn to conceptions of misrecognition to reshape identities without the baggage of racism
The becoming of a Curriculum Studies Special Interest Group: Reactive, interactive and intra-active complicated conversations
Full text linkIn this article we document the becoming of the Curriculum Studies SIG of the South African Education Research Association (SAERA). We outline the SIG’s activities since inception and theorise the work of the SIG through thinking with the ideas of scholars. For us theory is not a noun but a verb, so we prefer speaking of theorising rather than theory. We also use writing as a mode of inquiry rather than a mode of representation. Fidelities that sustained the work of the SIG, were not because of common histories, cultures and lived experiences but because of the ethical commitment to engage in an ongoing manner with the worthiness of knowledge - a critical conversation about what is included/excluded in teaching and learning programmes (and why). We end the article by exploring how we might re/imagine the SIG as a relational entity/assemblage, a shift from viewing complicated conversations not as interactions but as intra-actions
Potholes in the academy: Navigating toxic academic practices in South Africa
Full text linkAnyone who has attended an academic conference will have witnessed the number of exceptional projects and research produced by and conducted at various institutions, often led by one or two well-known professors. Despite mostly limited budgets, these professors, academic “rockstars”, if you will, (Smyth, 2017, p. 99) manage to produce many publications in the form of books, reports, policy briefs, op-eds, and attend conferences while managing full teaching loads and supervising lots of postgraduate students. So how do they manage? Without faculty-appointed support, such as Teaching Assistants, these senior academics often use their postgraduate students to do the substantial groundwork in the name of so-called capacity building to get what is known as the much-needed experience they need to advance their careers. In this paper, I discuss toxic academic practices and their impact on new and emerging researchers. Through a critical analysis, I demonstrate that toxic academic practices persist partly because of neoliberal policy contexts created in and through marketisation and techno-rationalism. Using the theoretical lens of Betrayal Trauma Theory (Freyd, 1994) I suggest that creating healthy academic work environments is crucial to realising higher education policy imperatives in South Africa. In this paper, I contribute to an under-discussed challenge in the South African academy, and I highlight how universities, through their philosophies and policies, often reward poor academic behaviour and perpetuate toxic academic environments and discrimination
The contribution of the South African Education Research Association to strengthening education research in South Africa
Full text linkThe South African Education Research Association (SAERA) was established a decade ago to provide a national home for all education researchers and scholars and a forum where the interests of South African education would be critically engaged with for the public good. Its central aim is to contribute to the intellectual and scholarly field of education research in South Africa. Using documentary analysis of primary sources and interviews with past SAERA Presidents, we outline the process of establishing this new national research association as well as the strategies undertaken to realise its goals. These strategies include the Journal of Education, annual conferences, Special Interest Groups and early career researcher support. We critically analyse these strategies in order to identify their successes and challenges to date and discuss some future considerations for the association
Social justice in community music and music education: Praxial musickin
Full text linkAbstract
Community music has a renewed focus on supporting social justice (Silverman, 2012:158; Veblen & National Association for Music, 2013:15) because it emphasises accessibility (Kertz-Welzel, 2016:116) and inclusion (Niland, 2017:279) Music educators are also summoned to reflect on and support social justice initiatives (Elliott, 2007:84) and teach social justice principles in Music Education programmes (Salvador & Kelly-McHale, 2017:21). Unfortunately, many learners and students have been excluded from musicking opportunities because of historical neglect and unfair practices. Musicking is a practical, human action, central to Community Music (CM) and Music Education (MusEd), and gravitates towards community (Small, 1998:9). Musicking can therefore be a practical vehicle for community musicians and music educators through which social justice principles can be advanced. Underpinned by Elliot’s (1995) praxial theory, Freire’s (2000) critical theory and Ebersöhn’s (2012) flocking theory, this qualitative study uses narrative inquiry to explore social justice in musicking through the lived stories of 18 South African, Ugandan and Israeli musicians involved in Community Music projects. The research describes how community musicians upheld inclusion, accessibility, lifelong learning and transformation in musicking as fundamental principles in the fight for social justice.
Keywords
Social justice, Musicking, Music Education, Community Musi
Decolonisation of education through citizen science: Slow science, not slow violence. The case study Diamonds on the Soles of Their Feet
Full text linkCitizen science projects are vulnerable to top-down directivity and driven by assumptions of one-directional ambitions with regard to capacity building and knowledge production. Through the story of Kate we discuss how deep seated legacies of inequality influence the politics of knowledge and explore what we, involved in citizen science projects, could learn from the politics of knowledge as it emerges from decolonisation struggles, particularly as manifested within the academy. Most universities are orientated around Western knowledge regimes that mute many other ways of knowing and ordering the world. Significant inroads have been made when writing on decolonising education but less is known about the effects of the colonisation of state institutions and the disturbances, interferences and disruptions to organising, sharing, creating knowledge in public spheres outside of these same universities. These disturbances affect personal and collective histories of people so that when they are part of research linked to the university - their everyday lives become enmeshed with institutional hegemonies. Research is not dissociated from its deeply entrenched colonial roots. If decolonisation means going deeper into the legitimacy of knowledge and who and how this is being defined – then this must include the process of producing that knowledge outside of the bastions of power.
 
Decolonising pedagogy: A critical engagement with debates in the university in South Africa
Full text linkIn 2015 universities around South Africa ground to a standstill while students called first for the fall of Rhodes and then for the fall of fees. For educational theorists such as Vygotsky (1986) it is in moments of crisis that contradictions within a system become visible, forcing change in the system. For Roy (2020) crises are portals, through which we travel and effect change. Change, of course, can be progressive in the sense that one moves forward to overcome a cris, but it can also be regressive. With the call for fees to fall, students went further and articulated a need to change the current curricula in the academy to reflect previously marginalised voices; a call, they announced, to decolonise university-based knowledge. What exactly is meant by the term, decolonisation, is not immediately clear. For some, such as Long (2018) this is merely a hollow signifier while for others, it represents an erasure of some, even all, Western thought. In this paper, I do not discuss decolonising education in the broader sense, but rather, focus my gaze on what it can mean to decolonise pedagogy. What does an inclusive, transformative pedagogy look like in South Africa? Can the work of South American pedagogical giants such as Freire cast light on how South African pedagogy should unfold in a time when colonialism and its sister capitalism seem to be teetering on the edge of an abyss? To develop my argument about a decolonial, inclusive pedagogy, I begin the paper by articulating what I understand pedagogy to be before moving on to develop an argument about what a decolonial pedagogy could look like. I draw on the work of Vygotsky, Freire, and Derrida to articulate a pedagogy capable of inclusion
Adult learning theory tenets: A panacea to ICT skills gaps among educators in South Africa
Full text linkThe importance of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in attaining educational objectives cannot be overemphasised. Moreso, the late 2019 COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated using ICT in schools like never before. Nevertheless, the level of ICT proficiency among educators might not translate to the desired educational outcomes if ICT-oriented School-Based Teacher Professional Development is not prioritised. This theoretical paper responds to the lacuna of poor ICT skills among educators by advocating the tenets of Adult Learning Theory (ALT) as an alternative to the existing approach(es) and a veritable panacea. The paper is located within the transformative paradigm to assist educators in embracing ICT application in the classroom. Conceptual analysis principles were adopted to advocate and authenticate ALT tenets as a panacea to the lacuna mentioned above. The paper commences with unpacking ICT's exigency in the teaching-learning process. From there, it explores extant literature to establish the status quo vis-a-vis the level of ICT literacy among educators; and the essentials of involving educational consultants in ICT-oriented School-Based Teacher Professional Development. Next, the tenets of ALT were thematised in a manner that responds to the research question. The implications of these tenets for the effective deployment of ICT training in schools were highlighted and presented as a blueprint for schools. It was argued that adherence to the tenants of adult learning theory in planning, training and evaluation of ICT training in school would enhance teachers' productivity and ultimately, school effectiveness
Analysing the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values, and its conceptualisation for integration into life sciences teaching in South African schools
Full text linkValue(s) as a concept is abstract with an elusive nature because it does not have physical presence. The motivation for this study resulted from the ambiguity of the National Curriculum Statement Grades R-12 (NCS) regarding a curriculum philosophy of ‘equipping learners with values’ during classroom teaching. Against the backdrop of four curricular transformations, the NCS is the currently used policy statement in South African schools. Therefore, the purely qualitative study was underpinned by the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a theoretical framework. Textural data in form of words, phrases, sentences, excerpts, quotations, or entire passages from four policy documents were analyzed using the Bowen (2009) approach to document analysis. The Manifesto on Values, Education, and Democracy (MVED) provided the framework for deductive and inductive approaches to analysis. What the curriculum philosophy connotes was confirmed, and how it may be conceptualized for integration into classroom Life Sciences teaching was proposed.