Voices from South and North in dialogue: on diversity and education for the future

In this article texts by scholars from South Africa, Sweden and Great Britain are analysed. They contributed as invited speakers to a conference in Sweden in 2009 on changing societies, values, religions and education. Here a South–North dialogue on diversity and the future of education is constructed through the way their conference contributions are presented and analysed. Democracy and gender also appear as crucial themes. Out of the original 12 keynote contributions to the conference a selection is made, meaning that seven of them are focused on. What can be observed is (a) that the contributors from South Africa connect diversity and social justice; (b) that the gender researchers critically discuss the risks of the North imposing its theoretical framework on the South and search for ways out of that and (c) a preoccupation with a renewal of education recognising diversity but also looking for what could come beyond such an emphasis and form a common ground. The article constitutes an example of shared knowledge production where South and North meet. Conditions for that are critically reflected upon methodologically.     

HIV/AIDS and Education: a study on how a selection of school governing bodies in Mpumalanga understand,respond to and implement legislation and policies on HIV/AIDS

Very little research has been done in South Africa on HIV/AIDS and education. This article is a small attempt to plug the gap. The purpose of the research is to investigate the legal and policy provisions and implications regarding HIV/AIDS for rural and township schools in the Mpumalanga district of South Africa. It seeks to answer three questions: (1) What is the status of policy and legislation on HIV/AIDS and Education in South Africa? (2) How do schools understand, respond to and manage issues of law and policy regarding HIV/AIDS? (3) What are the possible areas of conflict between legal and policy provisions and educational practices and behaviours? After examining the different laws relating to HIV/AIDS and education in South Africa a case study approach is used to explore the research questions in a number of rural and township schools. The findings highlighted a general ignorance of basic human rights issues, the right to confidentiality, the right to security from discrimination if it is known that a teacher or a pupil is HIV positive, the right to privacy and the right, under certain circumstances, to disclosure. The findings also reveal a distance between policy and practice so that schools need to develop vigilance with respect to any legal challenges that they might face at a local level. The findings also show that governing bodies should be made aware of the general legal issues surrounding the individual and HIV/AIDS before they can introduce fair and balanced policies.     

A Five Country Study of Gender and Sexuality Diversity and Schooling in Southern Africa

The importance of quality education provision for all is a globally acknowledged principle for the creation of sustainable learning environments at primary and secondary levels. This article reports on a study that aimed to increase understanding of the context of how gender and sexuality diversity is responded to in schools in Southern Africa. In this regard, the researchers drew on a recent five country study focusing on what the literature says about gender and sexuality diversity and schooling in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. Drawing on a review of reports and publications by relevant ministries, policy documents, published research, relevant statistical data, as well as the grey literature from civil society organisations, the findings indicated significant barriers to access for learners who embody non-normative gender or sexualities. The policies and schooling cultures in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland foreground discourses that marginalize, silence and invisibilise gender and sexual minorities. The researchers argue that if educational institutions in the region are to include all learners, there must be real engagement with the ongoing realities of heterosexist exclusion and marginalisation. The findings pointed to the need for teacher education to step up efforts to prepare teachers in the region to comfortably and professionally engage with and teach about issues of gender and sexuality diversity in the classroom.     

Unpacking (white) privilege in a South African university classroom: A neglected element in multicultural educational contexts

Multiculturalism currently aims for the political accommodation of difference instead of the subversion of the resulting privileges of difference. In the South African context such a distinction is especially important since the economic and symbolic subjugation of the majority of Black South Africans continues despite political transformation, and is exacerbated by an unwillingness to reflect on privilege and inequality. Drawing on Biko and Soudien’s critique of multiculturalism and vision for anti-racist education, this paper describes a classroom activity set for 164 nationally and culturally diverse second year sociology students at a university in Cape Town, South Africa. The activity tasked students to reflect on texts by Peggy McIntosh and Khaya Dlanga (one canonical, the other contextual) and reports on these students’ nuanced understandings of personal biography, experiences of privilege and self-reflexivity that connects personal experience to social structure and historical contexts. It concludes by offering modest implications for moral education in a multicultural university classroom.     

Whiteness and social studies teacher education: tensions in the pedagogical task

Utilizing a critical whiteness studies framework, the authors analyzed the experiences of a cohort of predominantly White pre-service social studies teachers discussing race and Whiteness in relation to education. The pre-service teachers resisted identifying White privilege as a form of structural racism, instead preferring individualized understandings of racism. The participants also utilized their personal biographies to accept or reject aspects of race privilege. The authors highlighted three tensions for teacher educators to consider when engaging pre-service teachers in discussions about race privilege, including recognizing the unfamiliar nature of structural thinking, appreciating the limitations of personal experience, and acknowledging the challenges of structural considerations within individual classrooms. The authors’ findings – and the tensions they highlight– depart from previous literature on White teachers and race by paying specific attention to pedagogical issues related to developing a critical racial consciousness in White teachers and by attending to the ways in which Whiteness, as a structural force, limits the ability of White teachers to engage in conversations about race. The authors attempt to trouble the assumption that the pedagogical practices in teacher education adequately create an environment in which White teachers can thoroughly engage in the problematics of race, racism, and Whiteness.     

Funding and the attainment of transformation goals in South Africa’s higher education

The link between the funding of higher education and the attainment of higher education transformation goals in South Africa, especially access by students from previously under‐represented communities, is the main focus of this paper. Specifically, the paper examines three questions: (a) How does public funding of higher education encourage (or discourage) the attainment of higher education transformation goals in South Africa? (b) What challenges do frequent tuition fee increases pose to the attainment of higher education transformation goals? (c) How can South Africa’s higher education be made affordable for indigent (mostly black) students? The paper concludes that although South Africa’s higher education funding formula is generally geared towards attaining the goals of transformation, several of its aspects are inimical to the achievement of these goals. Further, declining public funding of higher education and frequent tuition fee increases by public universities vis‐à‐vis higher education’s natural inclination to reproduce, and even to exacerbate, existing social disparities and inequalities do not bode well for the attainment of transformation in South Africa’s higher education. This is aggravated by existing high levels of poverty and inequality mostly affecting the majority of the communities that were marginalised during apartheid.     

A posthumanist approach to environmental education in South Africa: implications for teachers,teacher development,and teacher training programs

As we enter the sixth great mass extinction event, an event that points to humanity’s exploitative attitude towards nature, posthumanist ethics offers a different way of engaging with the world, a way which has clear and extensive implications for the way environmental education is taught in South African schools. However, given the official curriculum and assessment practices currently in use in South Africa, can a posthumanist approach to environmental education actually work within the current educational framework of discrete discipline/subject areas and specializations? The paper diffractively engages with the Department of Basic Education National Curriculum Statement: Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement: Foundation Phase Grades R-3: Life Skills for South Africa (the phase where environmental education is most likely to take place), and superpositions this text with a research study on environmental education undertaken in Canada and key posthumanist notions as they relate to environmental education. The paper concludes with a section on the implications for teachers, teacher development, and teacher training programs (not solely in South Africa) of using such an approach in the teaching of environmental studies.     

Ruled by hetero-norms? Raising some moral questions for teachers in South Africa

Thirty-eight countries in Africa regard homosexuality as punishable by law with South Africa remaining a standout country advancing constitutional equality on the basis of sexual orientation. In the context of homophobic violence, however, concerns have been raised about schools’ potential to improve the educational, moral and social outcomes for young people. In examining how some South African teachers normalize heterosexuality the paper raises questions about moral education in addressing homophobia. By drawing on interviews conducted with teachers across different social contexts, the paper shows how rights are limited by dominant constructions of heterosexual privilege mediated by a range of interlocking social processes including gender, race and culture. The paper argues that attention to the social and cultural influences in teachers’ account of homosexuality must feature in local designs of moral education. The imperative of working with teachers is presented as a way forward to facilitate the broadening of moral education to include an interrogation of heteronormativity which has evaded the focus of South African moral education.     

Changing regimes: Governmentality and education policy in post-apartheid South Africa

This article applies Foucault's notion of governmentality to educational restructuring in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that the nature of government in a modern state entails engaging with particular practices and domains of knowledge, which themselves constrain the changes that are conceivable and credible. Using Foucault's concepts of ‘conduct of conduct’, regimes of practices and ‘saviors’, the article outlines the approach adopted by the new government in relation to establishing constitutional ground rules and managing the economy. It argues that in its approach to restructuring education, the new government prioritised issues relating to the ‘conduct of conduct’. The article suggests that Foucault's approach of questioning normalisations might yield alternative accounts of the exercise of governmental power in changing education. It ends by proposing that a range of theoretical framings be used in engaging critically with educational change.     

The “A” factor: Coming to terms with the question of legacy in South African education

This paper attempts to offer an alternative framework for assessing education delivery in South Africa. Its purpose is to develop an analytic approach for understanding education delivery in South Africa in the last 11 years and to use this framework to pose a set of strategic questions about how policy might be framed to deal with delivery. The paper begins with a quick review of the country's achievements and challenges in education and shows that a failure to produce a high quality education system remains the country's primary challenge. The broad approach that is taken is to suggest that dominant approaches for understanding this lack of performance underplay the specificity of the country's context and specifically so its apartheid legacy. This legacy, it is argued, continues to be determinative in shaping, and accounting for the character of current social behaviour in the country, including the performance of children in schools.     

South Africa: Distance higher education policies for access,social equity,quality, and social and economic responsiveness in a context of the diversity of provision

The principal concern of this paper is the implication of the increasing diversity of higher education provision in South Africa for equity of access and opportunity for historically disadvantaged social groups, high‐quality provision, and social and economic responsiveness in distance higher education. This diversity is signalled by a variety of modes of delivery and learning/teaching methods, and the use of various terms to depict these. The article addresses this concern through an engagement with critical distance higher education policy issues, such as institutional differentiation and roles, the institutional location of distance education provision, the development of expertise and resources, the financing of distance provision and its quality assurance, and the monitoring and evaluation of the performance of distance education providers. In the course of this engagement the article also addresses a number of key themes that recur across the various policy documents produced during the past decade of democracy in South Africa.     

No Pain No Gain? Reflections on Decolonisation and Higher Education in South Africa

Abstract

Calls for the decolonisation of higher education in South Africa have been punctuated by comments on black pain. This is not surprising if it is acknowledged that violence inordinately marks so much of South African life. What is rarely discussed though is the idea that pain has also come to be fetishised. Pain, for example, is valued as a pedagogical means. While invoking notions of the decolonisation of education that cohere with humanisation, the authors critically reflect on the ways in which pain remains a dehumanising feature of higher education in South Africa. In doing so, they hope to start a discussion around issues seldom addressed more than in deeply felt sentiments that are rarely clarified and defined in terms of their importance for the transformation and decolonisation of higher education.     

A Theoretical Framework for Professional Development in a South African University

The changing context of higher education both internationally and in South Africa has presented challenges to lecturers that have led in some institutions to the introduction of accredited professional development courses for academics. Such courses for university lecturers are relatively new in South Africa. This paper reports on research in progress on a Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education and Training course offered at Rhodes University in South Africa. It highlights some important questions that have arisen on the ways in which the theoretical framework of the course has or has not met the needs of diverse groups of lecturers within the specific South African context. A central theme of the course is that of the critically reflective practitioner. Lecturers are encouraged to explore the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of their disciplines and to examine the philosophical assumptions of their espoused theories about teaching and learning as well as their teaching practice. The theoretical framework has been found to be most successful for more experienced academics. However, the author raises some important questions regarding the suitability of this framework in relation to the specific post‐apartheid context in which the course operates, specifically whether the course prepares lecturers to open up both “actual” and “epistemological” access to all the students at the university.     

南非远程高等教育概览

南非的远程高等教育有着悠久的历史,近年来,各种旨在提高南非远程高等教育质量和影响力的政策和策略不断提出,有效地保障和促进了南非远程高等教育的发展。南非远程高等教育的形成、发展及其运作框架和质量保障等方面都独具特色,值得深入研究。     

Analysing the professional development of teaching and learning from a political ethics of care perspective

This paper uses Tronto's political ethics of care as a normative framework to evaluate a model of teaching and learning professional development. This framework identifies five integrated moral elements of care – attentiveness, responsibility, competence, responsiveness and trust. This paper explicates on each of these elements to evaluate the piloting and implementation of a teaching and learning professional development model at a South African higher education institution. The political ethics of care was found to be a useful normative framework for a group of higher educators to reflect on the process of engaging in teaching and learning professional development in that it revealed the importance of differential power relations, the importance of working collaboratively and being attentive to the needs of both caregivers and care receivers.     

Memory and critical education: Approaches in the District Six Museum

Abstract

This article begins with the argument that education has become an important site of activity in museums around the world. This development has been of crucial significance for South Africa where many new museums have come into being and where old museums are now taking new courses. The challenge that these museums are having to confront is how to deal with the question of their public education responsibilities with respect to issues such as race, identity, nation and nation-building. How does the museum tell its story in ways that are inclusive and at the same time critical? How these challenges play themselves out in a museum such as the District Six Museum is important to talk about. What this discussion about the District Six Museum reveals is how little attention is paid to forms of public education in institutions outside of the school in South Africa. It is significant that the museum, which has come to play such a significant role in the reimagination of South Africa and is assuming in the intentions of the new government such a pivotal role in teaching South Africans about their pasts, is understood so poorly. The article uses the District Six Museum example to look critically at what a new museum educational practice might consist of.     

Coming in from the Cold? Further education and training in South Africa

As South Africa enters the Mbeki Presidency so the fortunes of the country are thrown into sharp relief. One of the central elements determining South Africa's short- to medium-term future will be the success of educational transformation, particularly when it is directed to addressing issues of equity and economic development. This paper explores the 1998 reforms of the further education and training system in the context of broader questions of educational and economic transformation in South Africa.     

Teachers’ emotional experiences of growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools and the prospects of an ethic of discomfort

This article analyzes the ways in which emotions are constituted and mobilized by teachers to respond to growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools. The analysis is based on a two‐year ethnographic study conducted in three Greek‐Cypriot primary schools that are ‘multicultural’. The following focus questions are addressed: (1) How do teachers’ emotional experiences of growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools form particular economies of effect?; and (2) What is the nature of these economies of affect and in what ways is it possible to form an ethic of discomfort as a space for constructive transformations in multicultural schools? An ethic of discomfort is theorised as an economy of affect that uses discomfort as a point of departure for individual and social transformation. The outcomes of this study show that teachers experience intense emotional ambivalence in their efforts to cope with growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools. It is argued, however, that the capabilities of teachers to cope with growing diversity and multiculturalism are enhanced, if an ethic of discomfort is constituted in multicultural schools. The implications of this study are discussed in relation to teaching and teacher education and suggest that constituting an ethic of discomfort offers opportunities to challenge structures of power, privilege, racism, and oppression.     

A site of struggle: Black academics at historically white universities in South Africa

Abstract

This article examines the identities of three black academics at historically white universities in South Africa. Three portraits that highlight politics within the professoriate as constituting a site for struggle are crafted. The wish is to shift the present focus in the South African literature by addressing the variety and complexity of black academics' everyday involvement in their oppression, demonstrating how that works. The analyses are set against the background of globalisation and the transformation of higher education worldwide. It is argued that the future of tertiary education in South Africa and elsewhere is likely to be influenced by battles within the academy about issues of diversity in regard to race, class and gender. Its outcomes are far from predictable.     

Disrupting metaphors of coloniality to mediate social inclusion in the global South

ABSTRACT

New voices emerging in the global South are contesting the academy’s elitist and exclusionary ethos by disrupting the normalcy of coloniality. Concerns raised by the student protests of 2015 and 2016 have challenged the higher education sector to rethink its traditional teaching, learning, and assessment practices in response to student calls for decolonised and transformative curricula. This paper explores the ‘voice’ of the marginalised, who dare to ‘speak’ in authentic and provocative ways to call the university to action. We pose the questions: are alternative voices enough to inspire institutional change if traditional hierarchies of power remain intact? What does this mean for the collective project of re-imagining a university that carries a promise of social inclusion and social justice? What are the implications for academic development (AD) work, which finds itself on the margins, in service of mainstream (and dominant) epistemic and pedagogic practices? Using reflective narratives, and drawing on decolonial scholarship, this study explores a group process involved in curriculum change work at a university in South Africa. It raises challenges for AD and its role in the current context of change.