Failures and possibilities of epistemic justice,with some implications for higher education

ABSTRACT

This papers draws on the compelling example of a political movement in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s to explore both how epistemic justice conditions of possibility and of failure play out in practice. It provides a springboard to understand how and why failures of epistemic justice matter tremendously for democratic and inclusive lives and how the historical example can point us in the direction of higher education as a space for Amartya Sen’s redressable injustices if underpinned by Miranda’s Fricker’s core capability of epistemic contribution being available pedagogically to all. The paper engages with ideas, practices and actions fostered by Black Consciousness against apartheid as both a hermeneutical and a testimonial injustice in South Africa, with both having a relational structure of giving and receiving, as Fricker argues and as Jose Medina elaborates by extending the structure to include the communicative and participatory. The paper then shows the importance of these conceptual frames to transformative higher education practices and how such practices might contribute to more epistemic justice in higher education.     

What does the teaching and learning of sexuality education in South African schools reveal about counter-normative sexualities?

ABSTRACT

Using the interlocking concepts of power, knowledge and discourse, this article focuses on how counter normative sexualities are discursively constructed in the sexuality education classroom and with what effects. Drawing on in-depth interviews with teachers and classroom observation, the evidence highlights the presence of specific discourses about the teaching and learning of sexuality diversity. First, while many teachers argued for the inclusion of counter-normative sexualities, in their teaching and responses they privileged heterosexuality as legitimate and natural and same-sex sexualities as deviant and Other. Second, teachers’ discourses construct queer youth not only as innocent and childlike but also as hypersexual and rebellious – requiring discipline and intervention. These constructions link closely to discourses of pity and tolerance, or blame when counter-normative sexualities were expressed. Finally, despite heterosexuality being privileged in the classroom, teachers’ and pupils’ questions about gender and sexuality diversity suggest the need for a more defined and inclusive curriculum sexuality education curriculum. Findings justify concern about how counter-normative sexualities are addressed in the sexuality education classroom and advocate for improvement in teaching and learning about counter-normative sexualities in South African secondary education.     

Silencing youth sexuality in Senegal: intersections of medicine and morality

This article reports on recent research funded by international development actors which explored how Senegalese youth acted as ‘active citizens’ and claimed their education and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) rights. Our analysis is framed by a review of contemporary international development discourses that seem to offer fertile possibilities for more plural understandings of sexuality. After describing the research methodology and methods, we draw on post-structural theory to analyse the discourses youth deployed to talk about sex and their sexualities. Rather than a source of pleasure, youth’s talk of sex and sexuality was dominated by discourses of morality and medicine, in ways that sustained a heteronormative gender regime permeated by entrenched hegemonic masculinities. We conclude that rather than the fertile possibilities identified in our opening review, the SRH lens re-inscribed a negative framing of sexuality which was compounded by both family and religious norms.     

Feminine sexual desire and shame in the classroom: an educator’s constructions of and investments in sexuality education

ABSTRACT

Within the growing body of literature on sexuality education in South Africa, researchers have highlighted how teachers may face, or themselves be, barriers to the implementation of rights-based comprehensive sexuality education. Important issues with regard to educators are: firstly, the social and discursive space within which educators are located; and secondly, the complex emotional and psychic investments that educators take up within particular discourses and practices. This paper explores, through a psychosocial reading of an interview extract with a particular educator based in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, how discursive and psychic concerns are sutured within the complex subjectivity of the educator as the medium for sexual education in schools. Specifically, it highlights the numerous ways in which feminine sexuality and desire may be avoided, denied and silenced. Even when feminine desire is specifically evoked as in this case, it is done so in a way that ensures social and cultural respectability, thereby reproducing shame narratives that form and maintain traditional gender discourses. Our analysis demonstrates how engaging with educators as subjects with their own sexual history and psychic dynamics, and as individuals with raced, gendered and classed identities, is a potentially transformative perspective for effective sexuality education.     

How School Choice Is Framed by Parental Preferences and Family Characteristics: A Study of Western Area,Sierra Leone

This research set out to investigate how, in a post-conflict area, parental preferences and household characteristics affect school choice for their children. A multinomial logit is used to model the relationship between education preferences and the selection of schools for 954 households in Freetown and neighboring districts, Western Area, Sierra Leone. The increased economic well-being of a family tends to increase the likelihood of choosing a nongovernment school. As a child gets older parents are more likely to select government over nongovernment schools. For girls, parents are twice as likely to select a nongovernmental organization (NGO) school than a government one. Where parental preference for girls is a “safe environment” government is the preferred choice over a private proprietor school. Interestingly, the level of household education does not affect the likelihood of attending any school management type.     

#Fallism and alter-globalisation: South African student movements as multi-institutional responses to globalisation

ABSTRACT

The South African student movements collectively referred to as #Fallism or #MustFall were more than resistance to fee increases. They were, and continue to be, movements targeting multiple institutions of Western coloniality and globalisation in tertiary education to establish economic and social equity, placing #Fallism within the broader global backlash against neoliberalism, neoconservativism, and Westernisation. This article makes three core claims: (1) modes of domination in globalisation are multi-institutional, thus alter-globalisation movements are also multi-institutional, (2) The goals of #Fallism in South Africa were, in part, related to alter-globalisation, and (3) #Fallism should be considered as a multi-institutional, alter-globalisation movement.     

Understanding the role of learning and teaching support materials in enabling learning for all

There are many assumptions about the ways in which textbooks and other learning and teaching support materials (LTSM) can contribute to improved learning outcomes in many international contexts. These can focus on ways that they can implement the school curriculum, often in lieu of good pedagogical practice. Drawing on case studies from Rwanda and South Africa, the complexity of the role of LTSM as part of classroom enactment is shown. The discussion suggests that there are enabling factors to this including support for teachers’ use of LTSM and the availability of materials to all learners. A framework is presented in which LTSM, teachers and learners can become equal partners in teaching and learning, but only when adequate language and other pedagogical support structures are provided. Conclusions consider the potential impact for LTSM use when it is elevated to a medium that is accessible and useful to both teachers and learners.     

南非私立高等教育质量保障机制探析

1994年新南非政府消除种族隔离制度之后,其高等教育发展迅速,其中私立高等院校的数量也有了大幅提高,与此同时,私立高等教育质量问题也受到了人们的关注。为此,南非政府出台了一系列政策和策略,进一步完善私立高等教育质量保障机制,以促进和提高私立高等教育质量。     

南非、埃及远程教育情况考察报告

通过对南非、埃及有关学校开展远程教育的情况考察，学习借鉴先进的做法，为建设江苏远程开放大学服务。     

‘These religions are no good – they’re nothing but idol worship’: mis/representation of religion in Religious Education at school in Malawi and Ghana

This article draws data from two complementary studies in sub-Saharan Africa to highlight the problem of religious misrepresentation in (multi-faith) Religious Education (RE) at school in Malawi and Ghana. Employing Michael Apples’ conception of selective tradition, the article is critical of the confrontational disputation inherent in the RE in the two countries. The misrepresentation is analysed under themes related to classroom discourse and the nature of religion. It argues that RE could actually be counter-productive and thus end up misrepresenting religions instead of promoting them. Unless there is a radical shift in the areas identified, the subject will continue to present a distorted picture of religion and thus fail in its civic responsibility as a curriculum area that is perhaps best placed to inculcate pro-social values towards citizenship in a world of religious diversity.