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Black Book of Sudan: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in Sudan
No full textMost of the recent literature on the civil war political turmoil and social upheavals in the Sudan is written in Arabic. At least three reasons explain this tendency. First, Arabic is the official language of the Sudan the main spoken language among its diverse national ities and ethnic groups. Second, the Arabicisation (wrib in Arabic refers to the use of Arabic as a language of instruction) of higher education means that Englih is gradually losing ground to Arabic. Third, the Sudan Government\u27s orientation courts the Arab World and perceives Arabism as the edifice of Sudanese nationalism, regardless of the fact that the majority of the Sudanese peoples are of an African or Afro-Arab origin
Editorial
Get PDFTaken together, the five papers and one book review in Volume 10, Issue 2 of CriSTaL point to the need for broad sweeping, deep transformations on the part of universities who are currently driven by the priorities of a massified, marketised, performative, and usually under resourced global higher education system. The papers particularly draw out how new challenges arise within the context of more technology-based learning. In focusing on critical issues within specific university contexts, each paper in this journal identifies and unpacks an oppressive practice that is embedded within the South African system, but each paper also develops a degree of optimism, by identifying concepts and practices that do or could help us build towards greater social justice through higher education.  
Towards understanding the influence of rurality on students’ access to and participation in higher education
Get PDFThis study examines the experiences of students from rural backgrounds in higher education in South Africa in order to foster more equitable access and participation. Edward Soja’s notion of spatial justice provides a platform for thinking about rurality and its impact on access and success in HE. Soja’s trialectical account means understanding rurality historically, spatially, and socially, and enables exploration of spatial inequalities based on the interplay between rurality and HE. Data was collected within an interpretive, qualitative, case study design through document analysis, interviews, and focus groups. The findings reveal the inequalities that students experience in HE due to their rural backgrounds and the fact that their experiences, abilities, and knowledges are neither acknowledged nor valued in the university, often by the students themselves. This study contributes to understandings of the historical, social, and spatial foundations of inequality in HE and charts future directions for policy and practice
Revisiting the Gramscian Legacy on Counter-Hegemony, the Subaltern and Affectivity: Toward an Emotional Pedagogy of Activism in Higher Education
Get PDFThis paper seeks to revisit Gramsci\u27s legacy on counter-hegemony, the subaltern and affectivity, by focusing on the implications of his cutting-edge position on the role of subaltern feelings in the formation of an emotional pedagogy of activism in the context of higher education. Three insights follow from this analysis. First, Gramsci\u27s work facilitates an understanding of how affect and ideology are entangled. Second, Gramsci\u27s concepts of counter-hegemony, the subaltern, and the organic intellectual in relation to his views about the unity of reason and emotion offer points of departure for activism, especially small acts of everyday life that often go unnoticed. Finally, Gramsci\u27s concern with the emotional potential of subaltern subjects shows how important it is to consider subaltern passions as political resources that challenge hegemonic conditions and formulate strategic counter-hegemonic responses
Using partial justice to interrogate the meanings and applications of social justice in service-learning
Get PDFThis paper provides an account of the concept of social justice and how it is loosely and uncritically defined and applied in service-learning context. Social justice is deemed as an approach to service-learning, which allows all actors to actively participate in decision-making, share power and benefit equally. This framing of social justice in service-learning is largely within the realm of John Rawls’ perfect justice. There is relatively little attention given to small and actionable changes yielded in and through service-learning. As such, this paper uses the concept of ‘partial justice’ as purported by Amartya Sen to interrogate the meanings and applications of social justice in service-learning. The paper draws on qualitative data collected through document analysis, focus groups and semi-structured interviews with students, staff, and community members. The focus and contribution of the paper is timely and pertinent given the unexamined conceptions and use of social justice in service-learning context
“The most seen I have ever felt”: Labour-Based Grading as a pedagogical practice of care:
Get PDFThis paper discusses experiments with Labour-Based Grading (LBG) in undergraduate anthropology courses at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. Since before the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been aware that our teaching was not serving students, especially those from different class backgrounds and historically marginalized communities, and those with learning disabilities or mental health issues. The challenges these students face are compounded by a secondary school education that does not adequately prepare them for university, leaving many feeling uncared for in the classroom. In response, we developed pedagogical practices of care using LBG. We discuss LBG as an assessment method that determines students’ grades based on the time and effort they spend on an assignment, instead of more conventional subjective criteria. We reflect on staff and student experiences with LBG to offer it as a model for a future of learning that actualizes care in the classroom.
 
Pedagogical and decolonial affordances of group portfolio assessments for learning in South African universities
Get PDFOur paper discusses our recent experiences with designing effective assessments for challenging local contexts by using group work portfolio projects. South African universities are experiencing ever-increasing student numbers, diverse student bodies which have different language and literacy skill levels, and limited resources. Simultaneously, the need to decolonise university curricula and teaching and learning practices is being actively investigated across South Africa. In this paper, we discuss preliminary steps we have taken towards achieving this broader transformative agenda in the context of the massification of education, namely designing effective and decolonial assessments that support epistemological access and academic success, while at the same time challenging what counts as ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young and Muller, 2013) in the classroom. We argue that effective decolonial knowledge practices and deep critical engagement can be achieved by using group work portfolio tasks that align with assessment for learning principles (Carless, 2015). Using a design-based research approach, we describe three courses across two universities which have implemented portfolio-type group assessments. The preliminary findings suggest that group projects can yield rich and productive assessment for learning outcomes in large classes. In addition, portfolio projects that purposely interrogate diverse perspectives, knowledges and experiences can harness the diversity of groups to work towards decolonising the classroom
Unveiling the professional attributes of university teachers
Get PDFThis article derives from a collaborative higher education project, conceptualised, and implemented by academics from seven South African universities. These academics are members of the South African Teaching Advancement at University (TAU) Fellowship. The project has its roots in the Department of Higher Education’s National Framework for Enhancing Academics as University Teachers, which identifies six leverage points or ‘imperatives for action’, one of which is the imperative to develop expectations (attributes) of academics in their role as university teachers. TAU Fellows engaged in the collaborative enquiry over a period of three years, appropriating a conceptual framework posited by Henry Giroux, of teachers as transformative intellectuals. In this article, each author reflects on his/her own scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) endeavours, which provided the conceptual tools to illuminate what for them and the group, are valuable professional attributes. The metaphor of the Baobab tree is appropriated to signify ‘rhizomatic thinking’, which portrays teaching as subconscious, subversive, non-linear, multi-directional, serendipitous, esoteric, dynamic, unbounded, unpredictable, adaptive, and non-hierarchical. This SoTL enquiry enabled the TAU group to unveil and declare their professional attributes as they made public their praxis. The attributes include academics as imbued with the capacity for critical thinking and actively promoting critical thinking amongst their students; as active learning mediators; as responsive, innovative, and relevant curriculum designers; and as engaged professional
Narrative Psychology and Vygotsky in Dialogue: Changing Subjects
Get PDFIn a special edition of the journal ‘Alternations’ (2019) on the extended programmes in universities in South Africa, authors highlighted the paucity of theoretical underpinnings in published articles on teaching approaches (these programmes are aimed at supporting non-traditional students’ ability to bridge between school and university). One of the concerns was that although there was much reference to Vygotsky’s work his developmental theories were largely underdeveloped. Jill Bradbury’s book Narrative Psychology and Vygotsky in Dialogue, though not primarily focused on new students’ learning, may offer readers greater insight into the use of Vygotsky’s principles in student learning. Jill Bradbury is a Professor of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Her teaching and research focus is on narrative psychology with a particular focus on sociohistorical theories of personhood development, educational transformation and social change, and the role narrative may play in these. She is the principle investigator in the ‘Narrative Enquiry for Social Transformation’ (NEST) project