1,720,962 research outputs found
Academic literacy through a restructured curriculum : possibilities for epistemological access?
Get PDFM.Ed.Abstract: The study explores how an academic literacy programme facilitated epistemological access in selected subjects offered by a university in the Gauteng province of South Africa. A narrative case study conducted within the interpretivist and qualitative philosophical research paradigm is employed to gain in-depth understanding of the academic literacy module. Special attention is paid to how it was explained and experienced by lecturers who acted as its facilitators. Their insights, obtained through interviews, are made sense of by contextualising them within the programme. The findings emphasise concerns that are highlighted in the literature on academic literacy; namely, that epistemological access is only best acquired when the literacy development occurs in a relevant disciplinary context. The view is further supported theoretically by the curriculum documents of the institution in which the study is conducted. The identified inconsistencies between theory and practice were a result of lack adequate financial support and staffing. The conclusion is that while the university has sufficiently conceptualised what needs to be done to enhance students’ academic literacy, the approaches used are those it denounces, for example, a ‘one size fits teaching approach’. The recommendation in the study underscores the need to contextualise the academic literacy module within the various disciplines offered in the faculties of the university
“Who does this History curriculum want you to be?”: Representation, School History and Curriculum in Zimbabwe
Get PDFThis paper looks critically at representation in the history curriculum of Zimbabwe in relation to the production of subjectivity and identity that the government hopes will fulfil the quest for nationhood. It finds that content selection is skewed towards promoting a dominant group while syntactic knowledge is manipulated to make students be what the state wants them to think and be. Furthermore, the examinations reinforce the dominance of a single group by privileging metaphors that emphasize a selective narrative. The paper argues that the adoption of critical modes of address that promote critical pedagogic practice can help both the teachers and their students transcend the narrow specifications of the nationalist curriculum. This requires that the school history curriculum should be treated as a political performance which must be appraised beyond the written surface of its textuality as to uncover the unconscious and constraining representations in it. In this way teachers are likely to contribute new sentences, not oft-repeated ones, to that unending dialogue between the present and the past which is history
Perceived gender-based challenges endured by Zimbabwean secondary school girls in their academic and occupational prospects
No full textThis study explores and unmasks factors in the Zimbabwean school curricula that predispose or channel
girls into particular occupational trajectories, in particular occupations or careers traditionally
stereotyped as feminine. As a qualitative research study of the culture of the schooling system within
this country, it employs the views of a sample size of 20 Sixth Form girls who were purposively selected.
The study also examines the impact of the pupils’ gender and their teacher attitudes and expectations
towards them as girls on their resultant career trajectories. The design adopted is an exploratory case
study that utilises the focus group interview for data collection from four secondary schools conveniently
sampled from the Ngezi District of Zimbabwe. The study establishes that as part of the hidden culture and
curriculum, teachers’ perceptions, attitudes and expectations of pupils’ gender roles exert a significant
influence on their academic achievement and career aspirations. This study concludes that effective
intervention strategies are an imperative if the Zimbabwean school curriculum is to be made gendersensitive.Publisher's versio
“Who does this history curriculum want you to be?”: Representation, school history and curriculum in Zimbabwe.
Get PDFThis paper looks critically at representation in the history curriculum of Zimbabwe
in relation to the production of subjectivity and identity that the government
hopes will fulfil the quest for nationhood. It finds that content selection is skewed
towards promoting a dominant group while syntactic knowledge is manipulated
to make students be what the state wants them to think and be. Furthermore, the
examinations reinforce the dominance of a single group by privileging metaphors
that emphasize a selective narrative. The paper argues that the adoption of critical
modes of address that promote critical pedagogic practice can help both the
teachers and their students transcend the narrow specifications of the nationalist
curriculum. This requires that the school history curriculum should be treated as
a political performance which must be appraised beyond the written surface of its
textuality as to uncover the unconscious and constraining representations in it. In
this way teachers are likely to contribute new sentences, not oft-repeated ones, to
that unending dialogue between the present and the past which is history
Interrogating the Lesson Plan in a Pre-service Methods Course: Evidence from a University in Kenya
Get PDFThe paper reports on research that examined how the content of a History methods course, taught in a university in Kenya, influenced student teachers’ lesson planning and pedagogical skills. A lecture on a lesson plan, micro-teaching lesson plan documents and presentations were examined to determine student teachers’ preparedness for teaching the History and Government (H&G) secondary school curriculum in Kenya. A case study was employed including lesson observations, interviews and document analysis. The findings demonstrate that focusing on parts of a lesson in lesson planning in the lecture may have derailed student teachers from developing the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that is likely to enable them develop competences that are expected for teaching H&G
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
- …
